


Nyctophilia

by prolonged_autumn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Misuse, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Basically them finally acting like stupid teens, Blow Jobs, Bottom Harry Potter, Don't worry, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Draco Malfoy Loves Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy just wants Harry to wear a fucking coat, Draco is so whipped, Drinking, Drinking Games, Exhibitionism, First Time Blow Jobs, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Nights out at Hogsmeade, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pet Names, Pining, Post-War, Praise Kink, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Top Draco Malfoy, and when it burns it BURNS, it's not that slow, seriously, the type of slowburn that makes you feel like you worked for the smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:59:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 107,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24197854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prolonged_autumn/pseuds/prolonged_autumn
Summary: Everyone's back for 8th year, and Harry and his friends seem determined to spend their last year in school running around at night, hyped up on coffee and alcohol and Honeydukes candy, doing all the childish things they didn't have the chance to do before. Draco watches as he's always watched: from afar, quiet and bitter and hopelessly in love. That is, until Pansy decides she's had quite enough of it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 865
Kudos: 2250





	1. Pansy's Proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome to a fic mainly composed of winter nights out in Hogsmeade and Draco incessantly mooning over Harry. There is alcohol, there is candy, there is fluff, there is smut - that about sums it up.
> 
> I've written almost the entire thing, so don't worry, no risks of me abandoning it, I shall update every Sunday (unless some fucking tragedy happens, but even then I shall strive to post).
> 
> Hope you enjoy~

Hogwarts was fucking pretentious in the winter. 

Every single moment of the year, it was a cacophony of overly pompous frails and kitch, grandiloquent laces, but in the _winter_ , with the fucking snow shovelled strategically into the most aesthetic corners, and touches of white snowflakes dusting everything in wonderful winter charm, Draco could swear the castle reached an entirely unprecedented level of flamboyance. 

It didn't help that the students were so _happy_. 

They pranced around like they were posing for the Daily Prophet, all smiles and laughter, with their robes just slightly dishevelled and their scarves dangling perilously from their shoulders, and their hair screwed up, and their glasses slipping from their nose - Merlin, why couldn't he just push them up?... In any sense, the students - all of them - were happy. 

Draco guessed that surviving the War really did put things into perspective: they'd all returned to retake their last year - because not all of them were _Granger,_ and it could get difficult to balance schoolwork and war strategy - and yet it all seemed so small now, the exams, the classes, the occasional assignments, that it seemed more like an extended holiday - like the week before Christmas in a normal school year, when most students were home and only some filtered still through the halls, lazy, sleepy-eyed and uncaring. 

Not that Draco was exactly partaking in that happiness. 

Because the War could have resulted in many things, but it sure hadn't brought down prejudice with it. It sure hadn't brought down the past. And those who had fought on the wrong side were not quite forgiven, and just shy of forgotten. Hanging in the edges of the school, reserved and quick-footed, all the outcasts like Draco spent their days pretending they weren't there. 

Draco himself had made quite the art of it. He knew precisely which alcoves were never visited, and which classrooms were safe to occupy during dull moments; he knew that the greenhouses were often empty when it rained, and that the lake was deserted before breakfast. 

He spent a lot of time there, by the water. He seldom got a good night sleep, and he found himself sitting by the margins often, surrounded in cold, grey fog, waiting for the castle behind him to come alive with lights for the day. 

Presently, he was there, feeling the early dew bead and soak through his robes where they splayed over short grass. He wasn't alone this time. Pansy stood next to him, an idle hand in his hair. 

'You'll catch a cold out here,' she said. She always said it when she found him there; she always stayed til he left. 

'It's been worse.'

'There's no one at the castle, you know. You could just wait in the library,' Pansy pulled on a thread of his hair, 'He's not there. I checked.' 

Draco rolled his eyes. He really did wish Pansy would sit beside him so that she could see it, but the only time he had suggested it she'd slapped his shoulder - she rathered have died in the battle, she said, than to join him on that freezing floor. 

'He'll be there soon. Or one of his friends, anyway.' 

'Well, that can't be helped; he's friends with everybody,' she scorned, picking a new lock to fiddle with. 

Draco's lips pressed into a bitter line. Of course he was. Who wouldn't want to be Harry Potter's friend? And whom would Potter not welcome with a friendly smile? Everyone - absolutely fucking _everyone_ \- except for the old Slytherins, it seemed. How disgraceful of the Chosen one to keep such a closed mind, honestly; to listen to stereotypes, to simply assume that none of them had changed, that none of them could be repentant, desperate to make amends, to shake his hand, to even hold it… 

'He fucked Seamus, I heard. Last night, at Hogsmeade.' 

'He didn't - and _stop_ that,' Draco snapped, batting her hand away from his hair. When he looked up at her, she was smirking.

'The rumours seemed pretty convincing, Draco. One too many shots of firewhiskey, is what I heard. Always does you in, firewhiskey. No wonder Potter was down to fuck any living-'

'He didn't fuck anyone,' Draco repeated, gaze now back on the grey lake in front of them, 'I checked.' 

He hadn't _checked_. He'd just tired of staying in the common room all night, wondering how many people had gone to Hogsmeade, how many hangovers he'd see plastered on dehydrated faces the morning after, how many mistakes were being committed under the guise of cheap alcohol - picturing who was drunkenly grinding against whom; who was hooking up with people they'd never even _considered_ , people who were so utterly _unworthy_ … He'd decided to see it for himself and, well, once he caught sight of Potter's little group slouched in some seedy booth, old habits had kicked in. He'd loitered about until they went home, and he would have likely noticed if Potter and Finnigan _had_ indeed fucked. 

Pansy let out a delighted laugh. 

'You checked? Draco, dear, could you possibly be more in love?' 

'Most definitely.' 

'Merlin, you're impossible,' Pansy sighed, nudging his side with her leg, 'I should get back before I freeze.'

Draco hummed in acknowledgement. He knew how it went; she wouldn't move until he did. 

'Are you sure he wasn't there?' 

Pansy nodded with a little amused smile.

'I think I'll join you, then.' 

They walked together back to the castle. Some of the windows were already dotted bright, making it stand out against the snow.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


The problem with Harry Potter was that he was always _everywhere_. 

Draco couldn't glimpse at a red and golden tie without thinking of him; he'd spot a redhead in the corridors and remember immediately of the Weasleys, and then of him; he'd pass the Fat Lady and wonder where he was; during storms, at night, whenever he heard thundering he was overcome with visions of his skin. 

Or sometimes, most obnoxiously, he'd sit in front of him in class, shifting in his seat, dipping his head to write something down - which really was just to spite Draco, could only be, because Potter used glasses but he surely wasn't that blind -, or leaning to whisper something into Weasley's ear and then sniggering against the muffle of his hand. 

It was worse in Charms class, as Draco could currently testify. In Charms, the tables were all close. Harry's back pressed against the edge of his table, and sometimes Draco would catch bits of what he told Weasley: some were ridiculously stupid, others actually funny, and it invariably made Draco wish he could tap Potter's shoulder and get his attention; answer him himself, maybe even be the recipient of Potter's little whispers. 

But he couldn't. He couldn't, because they didn't exactly work that way; because Draco couldn't talk to him without remembering how acutely inferior he was; because Potter was all perfection and smiles, and Draco was the ghost with the Dark Mark on his arm, spending cold dawns by the lake.

After an hour of burrowing holes into Potter's back, Draco was elated to hear Flitwick finally dismiss them. He was gathering up his books when a body crashed against the table, the wood digging into his thigh. He looked up to see Potter struggling for balance, cheeks red, Weasley laughing behind him. 

'Sorry, Malfoy,' he offered with a crooked smile - those damn smiles Draco was always seeing, that were only directed at him to polish a casual apology. 

The thought made all potential friendliness disappear. He picked up the rest of his books, glancing curtly at him. 

'And here I thought you were finally too old to be pushed around by your friends.' 

'Don't know where you got that idea,' Harry retorted with another smile, 'Hey, did I see you at Hogsmeade last night?' 

Draco very pointedly did not falter in his tone:

'No. It might come as a surprise to you, Potter, but not everyone's idea of a pleasant night involves obscene amounts of alcohol.' 

'That _is_ surprising.' 

Ron chuckled from the side, where he was watching the exchange. And why wouldn't he laugh as his friend deemed to talk to Draco, to spare him a breath, to offer him any word in that tone no pain nor tragedy had dulled down - that still sang warm and bright like when Draco had first met him, and gone to bed for months after with one exclusive thought in mind: that Harry Potter would not be his friend, even though he could surely give him better clothes than the hideous sweaters Weasley's mother got him for Christmas, and make him laugh much louder than the little huffs he could see him breathe out during breakfast, when Draco stared at him across the Great Hall. 

But Draco didn't let that upset him, and he raised one eyebrow cooly.

'And what does that say of your company?' 

Potter's eyes were unfairly amused. 

'Are you suggesting I get better company?' 

Draco could feel his face heat - inexplicably, really - and he looked down at last, picking up his books.

'No. I imagine you're quite fine as you are,' he uttered before walking away. 

Draco obsessed over the exchange for the rest of his classes: it would have been so easy to do _better_ ; it would have been so simple to be _nice_. When Potter had first apologized, he could have smiled and said 'No problem'. How difficult would it have been? Two words to convey enough friendliness that Potter would notice; to make him realize Draco was an actual person he could _talk_ to unprompted by unhappy accidents. 

When Potter had asked him if Draco was suggesting he got better company, Draco could have been brave and said 'yes'. He could have said 'Me'. He could have told Potter - with one single fucking word, no effort at all - that he was equally fit to be his friend; that he'd excell at it, even, because he knew what jokes he liked, and he'd be much more reliable than all those flimsy Gryffindors that could barely stand straight after two drinks, and he wasn't too scared to tell the Chosen One that he wasn't fooling anyone by chewing on the same burnt piece of toast for the entirety of breakfast, and to make him sit down and eat properly for once since he'd fucking gotten to Hogwarts. 

All of this he could have said, had he some of Harry's courage. 

Of course, Pansy found the whole thing hilarious. 

'You truly are daft, aren't you, Draco?' she laughed, sitting across from him at lunch, 'Truly, completely daft.' 

Really, he didn't know why he still shared anything with her. 

'What would you have had me do, then?' he asked absently, his eyes flittering around the Great Hall. The institutionalized habit of house-designated tables had mostly crumbled since the beginning of the year - friends sat with friends, independently of house, which meant Potter was much more difficult to pin these days: Draco had seen him sitting in every corner of the Hall by now - all except Draco's table, which remained still nearly exclusively Slytherin.

'You could have asked him out on a date.' 

That made Draco snap to attention pretty instantly. 

'I don't want to date Potter.'

'Well, you obviously want to shag him,' she smirked, 'And spend every waking moment with him. And kiss the ground he walks on. Would you _not_ call that dating?' 

'Don't be ridiculous, Pansy,' Draco rolled his eyes, 'I simply don't understand why he's decided to make friends with absolutely _everyone_ except for me.' 

Pansy sent him a pointed look which he primly ignored, focusing instead on the pieces of honey glazed pork on his plate that he'd been moving around with his fork. 

'He hasn't tried me yet either, darling, if it serves you any comfort.'

Draco could hardly contain the bitterness in his gaze:

'He's talked to you before. He asked you for help in _Potions_ , Pansy.' 

Potions. Draco had been sitting right there, and he'd asked _Pansy_. 

He pushed his plate away, bumping elbows with Blaise, who was animatedly gesturing beside him as he chatted with Pike and their new obnoxiously tall, _absurdly_ dull Ravenclaw friend.

Pansy's face split into a teasing grin.

'Are you jealous, Draco?' 

She hadn't even looked up at Potter before reciting some vague answer. If he'd asked Draco, he wouldn't have minded leaving his own brew alone for a second and personally analyzing Potter's potion. If he'd just _asked_ , Draco would have made sure it came out perfect.

'No. I simply think it was rude of him, is all.' 

'I'll tell you what,' Pansy's eyes went black with challenge, 'You really want Potter to be your friend?'

Carefully, he nodded. 

'Then it's decided. We're going to Hogsmeade next week.' 

Draco could feel his mind go blank.

'We're absolutely _not_ going to Hogsmeade next week.' 

'Please, Draco, you'd be going anyway to spy on him, what even is the difference?' Pansy's expression seemed fully unimpressed, and Draco felt himself shrink under her expectant gaze. 

But he simply couldn't go. He wouldn't be able to stand it. All those people stumbling in the snow, cheeks flushed and robes ruffled; all that aimless happiness that had no place for him. 

'I don't _spy_ ,' he murmured. Pansy waited with stubborn decisiveness, and he sighed, 'He can't see me, Pansy, not after I essentially told him I'd never step foot in that place.' 

'He'll be too drunk to remember,' she shrugged, her entire countenance glistening with victory.

Draco couldn't blame her - she had a certain way of making possibility seem like fact. 

Still, telling her so would do no good. What terrible things would come of Pansy knowing just how influential she could be to Draco.

'I'll consider it,' he said; and, taking an apple from a nearby fruit bowl, he stood, 'Better be off, now.' 

He left the Great Hall alone. Pansy stayed with Blaise, which truly was quite laughable: not like she'd be able to distract him from the new Ravenclaw he so fancied - and, truly, it really was just impossible to conceive how everyone made friends so _easily_. 

He headed to the Astronomy tower. There was a nook there, almost on the top floor, under an arched window, bathed in a soft, pale light that was perfect for reading. It had become a favoured spot of his - no one else ever went there, and when the pages began to bore him he could turn to gaze out the glass panel, at the frosted school grounds, the front of trees guarding the Forbidden Forest, the edges of the Quidditch court, over which he could occasionally catch the quickly-shifting dots of players, and let his mind distort every little glimmer into the gold stripes on a scarf or the reflection off round-lensed glasses. 

The tower was also never truly silent: there was the incessant ticking of hidden clocks - inexistent clocks, perhaps, but there nonetheless; the whispers of the wind as it whizzed through the cracks and eroded the old, porous blocks of stone. A little soundtrack composed of nothings which played a slow rhythm in the back of Draco's mind as he settled down under the window's archway, intent on studying some advanced formulas for the manipulation of potion scents. It quickly proved fruitless, however, even in the melancholic calm the space evoked; each phrase and diagram served only as a reminder of that day at the start of the year where Potter had sauntered past him, the _best_ student in that class, and asked Pansy for suggestions. The ache stung just the same on his chest as when he'd stretched his hand to Potter before they were Sorted, and Potter had denied him. 

Draco set the book aside on the cold floor, staring morosely out the window. A prickly layer of ice had frozen over the glass. 

He wondered if it'd be snowing the next time he went to Hogsmeade. If Pansy would still make him go if it was. If she'd actually force him to _talk_ to Potter, all in the name of her preposterous misconception that Draco wanted to date him - as if that could ever be possible. 

No, Draco set much lower goals. All Draco wanted were small, scattered things: to be the sole sharer of a joke Potter had found especially amusing; to be greeted just like Potter greeted his friends - with a fond hand on a shoulder and sleep-smoothed smile; to be able, in turn, to guide Potter with a hand on the low of his back, when the boy was all nerves and indecision; to know where Potter was not because he lurked but because he'd told him over breakfast; to wake up next to him so he could see his hair _before_ Potter styled it - if Potter even touched that bird's nest at all; to be the one Harry leaned against when he had too much to drink; to not have to loiter outside, alone in Hogsmeade, but to be sitting at that seedy booth right next to him, even if that meant enduring his other friends; to get to rest an arm around him, feeling his warm breath against his neck; to be the only one Harry ever wanted to tug toward the dance floor. 

All he wanted were moments like that. 

Because Draco had always felt that - he'd known ever since a child that he felt love for Potter. But his love hadn't bloomed normal, and it grew dark: old and bored, attached to all the fucked up things he'd done in order to conceal it. Draco Malfoy was not supposed to want to hold the Chosen One's hand, yet he did, ever since first year, and now the want had dulled, and he'd become accustomed to it, just as one does to a weak heart. It was a constant hurt, like a bad back, that Draco had endured for so long that he couldn't remember standing without its weight on his shoulder or breathing without its hold in his lungs. An indissociable part of him, his love for Harry, but nonetheless resigned: it was purposeless, and it was effortless, like correcting his name to Potter when he thought of him, or telling the world what he felt was hatred. 

So yes, Draco loved him, but that didn't necessarily mean he wanted to _date_ him. Some things were simply too farfetched to be wanted. 

It still hurt, however. Especially now. Everyone else glowed with optimism for their new lives after the war. It was contagious, and Draco found himself unwittingly hoping for change in a fact that had been set in stone years ago: Potter didn't want anything to do with him, and never would.

He sighed, picking back up the leather bound book. It was pointless, all of this. He'd been obsessing over Potter for years now: where had it ever led him? 

Potions, that was worth his time. 

And so, Draco pressed his back against the glass, letting himself be swept into a world of measurements and technique. Behind him, snow began to fall, swaying slowly in the air, painting the window white. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, that's it done, standby for the next chapter, in which Draco's going to party at Hogsmeade. Or, you know, party as much as Draco Malfoy can. He really does try. 
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	2. A Night In Hogsmeade I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand the posting schedule has hereby changed to Wednesday and Sunday, because quarantine is a thing and we're all here looking for a distraction.
> 
> Enjoy~

A week later, Draco had not forgotten his conversation with Pansy in the slightest. He'd mull it over while he walked in the corridors; he'd hear it murmured through his professors' voices when he got distracted; he'd be a second from sleep when Pansy's challenging stare would resurface in his mind and he'd stand in a jump. No, he hadn't forgotten, because it had never been in Draco's nature to let go of things - particularly when it came to Harry Potter.

He hadn't forgotten, but he'd convinced himself that maybe it would be alright - that Pansy herself might, amidst the whirlwind of her life, not have given it a second thought. That Friday would trudge along as uneventful as ever, and that he'd retire to the Slytherin's common room at dusk not to hear the excited laughter of all the students taking the night train to Hogsmeade. No distractions, no pathetic fantasies: he'd stay in and finish his Transfiguration homework before going to bed. 

He wouldn't think of Potter. He wouldn't go to Hogsmeade. Draco belonged faded and modest in the background, a slab of stone that composed the landscape. 

That's what he thought. That's what he hoped. And Pansy, the vicious minx, didn't bother to correct him - or to give him any single fucking _infinitesimal_ impression that she remembered their exchange - until the sun had begun to set, the school had gone calm and deserted, and Draco had just retired to the common room.

'What will you wear?' Pansy's voice had startled him. She was lounging in one of the armchairs by the fireplace, fitted in a short black dress. Her eyes were lined gloss black, a green shimmer over her eyelids; her bare legs glistened warm orange from the flames.

Perfectly dressed for a night out. Draco was clad in his old school robes, all creased from when he'd fallen asleep while reading in the greenhouse. 

'Whatever do you mean?' he'd feigned ignorance, though his face had tensed, and he stood rigid where his hand still rested on the doorknob. 

Pansy gave him a clear look of reproval. 

'That black silk shirt, I think. You look quite dashing in it.' 

Draco sighed, still rooted to his spot. 

'Your legs will freeze.' 

'Yes, but they do look fantastic,' Pansy hummed non-commitaly, 'Now hurry, Draco. It's dreadfully boring to wait for you.' 

Thus, Draco had ended up pressed into that damned shirt, suffocating inside black skinny jeans, platinum hair slicked back, long grey peacoat grazing his knees, and he looked good, he knew he did, but it didn't matter because no one would notice, or maybe this no one would notice like one idly notices a pleasant flower, and this no one would quickly look away - because how could _Malfoy_ hold this no one's interest? -, and this no one would instead give their attention to some unoriginal imbecile of a Gryffindor in the most standard Muggle clothes, because from what Draco had observed _that_ was this no one's preferred style, and not the monochrome Pansy had suggested he wore. 

Besides, no amount of elegance could distract from the red rash on his neck, the absolute discomfort of his demeanour as he sat in the back carriage, Pansy's hand steady on his forearm, shaking with each bump of the train as it trod along the tracks and Draco tried not to think about the fact that Potter was sitting a few carriages away. 

He was going to Hogsmeade. He was going to Hogsmeade at the same time as Harry. He was going to talk to him. 

'We will be drinking an extraordinary amount of alcohol tonight,' he murmured faintly.

Pansy patted his arm lightly. 

'I'd expect nothing less.' 

They both stared out the window as the first outline of the village came to view. 

He waited stubbornly inside the train until the herds of students had wandered off the platform, scattering across the glistening white streets. He didn't see Potter, but he did catch the fiery head of a Weasley skittering off to the right. 

Resolutely, he pulled Pansy along to the left. 

'Two shots of firewhiskey. Three, actually,' he told the waiter in the stodgy new pub, Kettle Bottom.

'Make it four, then.' 

Pansy and he were pressed up against the bar, watching the crimson tinged liquid being poured into the glasses. A group of Hufflepuffs - Hufflepuffs, for fuck's sake - were crowding a little table, perilously balanced on stools as they simultaneously downed their drinks; Blodwyn Bludd rumbled in his baritone, a girl was tripping down the narrow stairwell, fifteen bodies in five square meters - and all was dark, shadowed, and Draco felt, as the vampire's slurred words filled his senses and he and Pansy did their shots in quick succession, like he was drinking blood, red and hot down his throat, weighing him down toward the dusty floor. 

'Where does Potter like to go, then?' 

'I don't know.' 

His voice surfaced hoarse from the alcohol. The girl that had been labouring down the stairs with shaky knees and swinging hair walked past him in a frenzy, elbowing him in the ribs.

'Where does he go, Draco?' 

'He walks around,' he waved a hand dismissively, 'They do what they like.' 

'Alright, then,' Pansy placed a handful of sickles on the bartop, then linked her arm with Draco's, 'I guess we'll walk around as well.'

'Another shot first, perhaps.'

Pansy laughed, dragging him through the crowd and out the establishment. 'I'd like you to be at least somewhat coherent when you talk to The Boy Who Lived.' 

The cobblestone outside was glistening with frost, the lamplights colouring it yellow. It was quieter there, in the little street where Kettle Bottom was hidden, though Blodwyn Bludd's rough consonants reverberated still through the air, and there was a distinct, already intoxicating sound of clinking glasses digging at his ears, as if coming from every direction. 

It didn't take them much time to find Potter's group. Pansy, whose legs had been growing numb, demanded they go to the nearest pub and warm up. As they entered Hog's Head, a flare of familiar voices overcame them.

'Look who it is,' Pansy smirked, angling her head towards the left corner, where Potter seemed to be in the middle of a riveting conversation with the two younger Weasleys, Lovegood and a few indistinct faces. 

He was laughing - really laughing, and they were laughing with him, huddled in their little table, empty glasses forming a circle in its center. He was laughing with his friends in his world, and Draco did not belong there, could _never_ belong there - how had he ever thought he could?

'Let's leave,' he whispered, holding onto Pansy's elbow by the door. But she shook him off, heading to the bar. 

'Nonsense. Let's have a drink first.'

He took a seat beside her while she ordered them two wizard's brews. There was chattering everywhere, meaningless and unintelligible, swirling over a soft melody, diffused through warm lighting, ingraining itself in the floorboards. Draco hated it. It all seemed to be about _him_.

'They haven't looked,' she noted, glancing at the group before taking a sip of her drink, 'Shall we go and greet them?'

'And say what?' 

'I'm almost certain the correct term is 'hello'.' 

'You know, you really do lose your charm when you drink,' he said dryly, eyeing her with one arched brow; but Pansy simply smiled, the dark shimmer on her face glowing emerald green, and glanced towards the corner of the pub again. 

'At least let me finish my-' 

'Malfoy!'

Hermione, for all her intellectual talents, had never been the best at dishonesty - her expression, as she walked up to them with the Longbottom boy in tow, was the purest form of surprise. Comical, really, all raised brows and slack mouth, gaze skittering between Draco and their surroundings, as if believing them incompatible. 

'Granger,' he nodded curtly, 'Longbottom.' 

Pansy gave him a look before turning to face the two Gryffindors. 

'How nice to see you,' she smiled, tone full of faux warmth. 

'Oh,' Hermione broke into a small chuckle, scratching the side of her head. Behind her, Neville was looking attentively at his drink, 'Good to see you too. You look wonderful, Pansy,' she trailed off, rolled her glass in her hands - butterbeer, because what else would Granger drink? -, then drew a polite smile. 'We'll be sitting over there, then. You two have a pleasant night.' 

They walked off; Draco didn't dare follow them with his gaze, scared that he'd meet Potter's eye. It overcame him then, the notion that Granger would inevitable babble over their encounter, and gesture their way with subtle movements of lean neck and angled shoulders, and though she might aim for diplomat in her retelling of the story, and Longbottom would never conjure enough individuality to add any detail beyond her words, it was certain that their entire group - Potter included - would very quickly become aware that Malfoy and Parkinson, the two peremptory Slytherins, were there, and not in a particularly friendly mood. 

Potter would know. Right now, in ten, twenty seconds, he'd know. He'd surely look at Draco, and Draco daredn't look at him, which meant he'd be with his back turned as he was subjected to the brief scrutiny, and Potter would see only the grey of his peacoat and the slick silver in his hair - and with no chance to show him any warmth, any mildness through a stare or a tweak of lips, what could Potter ever think besides Malfoy, dark, death? 

'I'm going to get some air,' he told Pansy, downing the rest of his drink before standing. 

'Don't leave me alone too long. I fear Granger and I might become best friends.'

Outside, it had begun to snow once more. Snowflakes settled on Draco's nose as he leaned against the stone wall. They nestled in his hair as he stared up at the sky. 

A couple walked past him. They were swallowed in heavy, black coats, folded over each other, dotted in white; between them, pale and trembling, their hands swayed, fingers entwined. 

Draco had never quite understood the appeal of holding hands. 

He did think, sometimes, that it could be interesting to hold Potter's. He'd fidget, strain against it, swing their arms and tug Draco around; his hand would be too warm, his fingers small and restless where they wrapped around Draco's; but maybe, if Draco smoothed circles on his skin with his thumb, he'd sag a little; maybe, if Draco squeezed a bit tighter, Potter would squeeze back; maybe, if they did it often enough, they'd find a rhythm: and they'd meet each other in the halls and walk together to class, and their hands would slide together without a thought. 

It could be interesting, then, to hold hands. 

Not that it'd ever happen. 

Because Draco couldn't do it. 

He couldn't even smile at Potter's friends. 

He couldn't even pretend - just for a moment, just like Pansy had. How hard would it have been? Then, Granger would have reported it to Potter - Longbottom, the nervous soul, would have nodded so promptly his neck would hurt - and Harry would know Draco could be pleasant. Maybe he would have invited him over. Among that nauseating group of kindness Draco and Pansy would have sat, and Draco would have played nice all night and hoped to Merlin Potter was looking. 

Celestina Warbeck's intimate vocals rolled throughout the street as the Hog Head's door was opened. Draco wondered if the couple had gone in, and turned his head to check. 

'Hey,' Potter said instead, standing halfway between Draco and the pub's door, his hands shoved into the pockets of his flimsy fucking jacket. 

Draco couldn't force out one single miserable word. His mouth didn't even open; he just stood there, back against the wall, cold gaze locked on Harry's figure like it saw nothing there except for snow and cobblestone. 

'I thought you had better things to do than to come here.' 

He was smirking, the bastard, shivering a little as he stared expectantly at him, and Draco could only find it in him to think that one of his friends truly ought to have forced him to bring something warmer - that it was like everyone other than him thought the Boy Who Lived was some kind of higher entity, unbothered by menial needs. Like they didn't see the red in his cheeks when it was cold out, like they didn't know he _bled_ just like the rest of them. 

Draco should buy him a better coat. He could owl it to him, an anonymous parcel. Potter would most likely think it was by one of his enamoured fans. 

He wouldn't be wrong. 

'Sod off, Potter.' 

Potter chuckled, no traces of surprise in his expression. Even though Draco knew it was justified, knew it was his own fault, it still made him ache.

'You having any fun?' 

'I was.' 

'Hermione said you ran out as soon as she left,' Potter noted, taking a step further. Draco tensed his jaw, but very pointedly did not look away. Of course Granger had said that - Draco bet they'd all had a good laugh about it. 'You do know we can be in the same room together, right? The war's over, Malfoy. No real sense in being rivals anymore.' 

'I never hated you because of the _war_ , Potter,' Draco scoffed. 

'Why then?' Harry's brows raised, disappearing under tousled black hair, 'Was it my looks?' 

'Because you were insufferable, that's why,' Draco snapped, and it was true, in a sense: unbearable in this chaos Draco could only covet from afar; infuriating in this jumble of limbs he wanted to touch for _seven_ years; excruciating in this kindness Draco could never give back. Agonizing, harrowing, heartbreaking. 

Insufferable. 

Harry huffed. He always looked around when he was mad, like he feared someone might see. 

'I wasn't the only brat, as I recall it.' 

At least that Draco wasn't too proud to admit. 

'No, you weren't,' he said, softer than he'd spoken before, and delighted in the little smile that elicited. 

'I'm gonna head back in,' Potter shuffled between his feet, staring at Draco in that little amused way of his, 'Will you join me, or are you going to stay here and freeze?' 

It would be incredibly easy now to say yes. So easy, so _possible_ , that Draco felt terrified. 

'I think I'll freeze,' he answered, and this time he looked away. 

Potter stood there a little while longer. Time seemed to stretch infinitely between them until Draco heard a sigh, then Potter's retreating footsteps, slow and wet on the cobblestone. When Draco heard the pub's door swing closed, he breathed out a small cloud. 

He felt stupid. 

He felt fucking weak. 

Moments later, he heard the door open once more. Pansy leaned against the wall beside him, nudging him with her boot. 

'More alcohol?' 

'Please.' 

They ended up back at Kettle Bottom, scrunched up in a corner by the stairs, their legs twined round the flimsy stools, their torsos bent over the little table. Blodwyn Bludd was still playing; a low murmur scratching on floors, crawling on walls. 

'So, what did he say?' 

'Nothing.'

'Draco.' 

'Nothing that matters,' Draco insisted, taking a sip from the glass of wizard's brew they were sharing.

'Alright. What did you say, then?' 

Pain thrummed inside Draco; a clench of muscle, a high-pitched agony. He stared at the stone walls, the reckless tower of bottles behind the bar, the round Adam's apple of some stranger quivering as he finished his drink in a succession of inelegant gulps - everywhere except Pansy's eyes, who seemed now, with the dim, red lighting of the pub, bottomless black. 

'I told him I hated him.' 

He couldn't even get the words out without the most pitiful sigh; it was so dreadfully obvious, really, that he was lovesick. Draco didn't even know how he'd been hiding it all these years.

Pansy, when he risked a glance, seemed actually cross. 

'If you're trying to fool me, darling, I don't find it amusing at all.' 

'I'm not,' Draco said simply, and he reached for the glass again, only for Pansy to still his hand with a vicious grip. 

'You absolute idiot. Why on _earth_ would you say that?' 

'Because I couldn't very well tell him I loved him to his bloody face, could I?' Draco snapped - and when the shock paled Pansy's features, he very promptly ignored it. Moreover, he slid his hand from under her now limp fingers and fetched the glass. 

For the moment he tipped his head back to drink, for those precious seconds he felt the brew run fast down his throat and pool in his stomach, he could suppress the panic of having said it aloud for the first time. He could pretend the words didn't exist; that they weren't now part of the world, vibrations in the air, as real as any solid thing. Then, Pansy stood up, and fear washed over him in one sickening wave. 

'Where are you going?' he urged, getting up as well. 

Pansy hardly spared him a glance, continuing her walk to the bar. 

'Getting a shot. Care to come with?' 

Draco hurried behind her, and they both squeezed between a flurry of people, elbows firmly pressed on the liquor-stained bartop. Pansy caught the busy bartender's attention with one dainty hand and a grateful smile, and soon the shots were poured toxic green with swirls of orange into their glasses. Draco had no idea what it was, but he daredn't speak and ask. 

Pansy gave him a discomfited smile, raising her shot high. 'Cheers,' she said, and downed it. It convulsed in her neck, twitched in her lips, and Draco followed suit, letting the liquid burn acid in his mouth. When he put down the empty glass, there was a throbbing between his eyebrows, and Pansy was definitely too close, everything else blurry. 

'I knew you fancied him,' Pansy said then, running one manicured finger through the brim of her glass, 'Not that you loved him. When did that start?' 

Draco sighed, leaning against the bar for support. He had definitely drunk too much too fast. 

'I never _just_ fancied him. He was everything from the moment I met him.' 

Pansy nodded a little bit, and this time she actually made the effort to school her expression while she processed it. Draco could barely believe it - he was reeling, heady with the realization that he was fucking _talking_ about it; that he could describe it with explicit names and frilly, saccharine adjectives, that he could weave aloud the pathetic lyrics that came to him unbidden at night, when he was most desperately in love, and that Pansy would be there to _try_ to understand. That he loved Harry Potter, and that, in this damning, miserable fact, he wasn't alone. 

'Well,' Pansy uttered, her head cocked to the side, 'You've been terribly rude to him.' 

Draco laughed, though it died out bitter in his tongue. Someone pushed him roughly to the side in an attempt to get closer to the bar, and Draco pressed against Pansy as he spoke:

'I was meant to.'

'You were not _meant_ to,' Pansy rolled her eyes, 'There was no need to pester him as much as you did.' 

Another push, and Draco was really quite done with the cramped establishment and the friendly elbows of all those drunkards. 

'If I did not make his life miserable, and yet I still ogled him as much as I did, how long do you think it would take before the entire school realized what I felt?' 

Pansy's lips curved into an amused smile. Behind her, the door opened, and there was a growing of voices as more people filtered in. 

'I suppose you're right. You always did look a bit _longful_ when you looked at-'

'Pansy, Merlin, stop talking.' 

Because that was Dean Thomas's unmistakably tall figure that had just walked in, and behind him Draco had seen a flash of fucking _red_ hair. 

Pansy, meanwhile, had managed to turn in the little space she had, and she was inspecting the scene with a critical eye.

'Do try not to tell him you hate him this time, dear,' she mused.

She really did get quite horrid when she drank, in Draco's opinion. 

'I'm going,' he uttered, even though he was firmly rooted to the ground, and the crowd was so dense around him he couldn't move, and all he could do was search in a frenzy for that familiar - fucking _ingrained_ into his mind - mess of black hair, and he was awful sure he would suffocate in but a moment.

'Where would you possibly- Draco? Draco!' Pansy called out. Draco didn't turn, didn't speak another word, simply ran towards the narrow, spiraling stairs at the back of the pub, one hand white-knuckled on the flimsy pipe railing to help him up. 

Upstairs, on an even smaller patch of space, people waited in lines for the loo. While the women's was relatively large, the men's had only two people, and Draco fitted himself in a corner behind them, letting himself breathe in the shadows. 

He could hear, if he tried enough, the shrill voice of Ron Weasley clashing awkwardly through the pub. Then again, if he _really_ tried, he could also hear that voice scorning his name - yelling 'Draco' between fits of laughter - which perhaps meant he wasn't hearing anything at all. It was all projections; it was all his ridiculous mind, for which everything revolved around Potter and his friends. 

Still, he wondered when that voice would finally leave. Certainly Potter's group wouldn't stay long - they'd ask for their shots and go on their merry way, each of them blissfully drunk, stumbling, giggling, holding onto each other with thoughtless, _greedy_ hands… Shameful, the lot of them. But they'd leave, skitter off to another venue in no time, and no one would see Draco and he'd swiftly return to Pansy once they were gone, properly apologize and then force her to give up on this forsaken plan and turn in for the night. 

An especially high-pitched yell reverberated through the place; Draco glanced down the stairs, but the dim lighting blurred everything out, and he couldn't discern what was happening through the dense, reddened atmosphere. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, it was one of Potter's friends downing her shot; perhaps they'd already finished drinking, and were now busy settling financial matters - because Draco had _seen_ , all those nights he'd loitered around Hogsmeade, that Potter became specially fucking nice when he was drunk, and he'd insist on paying everything, probably because he didn't have any friend selfish enough to tell him how fucking _daft_ that was, to make sure he spent his money wisely instead of wasting it in his most ferociously Gryffindor accesses of inconsequentiality. 

'Is this where you ran off to, then?' 

Draco, for one brief moment, was certain a cosmic hex had been placed on him. 

'I don't run, Potter.' 

Harry snorted, placing himself behind Draco, who was now next in line. 

'What a bloody stupid thing to say,' he sniggered. His step was a little slurred, his cheeks flushed, his glasses askew. 

He was drunk, and Draco hated drunk people, yet it suited Potter perfectly. 

'Who knew the Boy Who Lived couldn't handle his liquor?' 

Potter looked offended for about a second; then, he seemed to forget it, and he smiled instead. 

'That's really not true. I just drank a bloody lot.' 

Draco nodded absently, his gaze falling on the row of girls waiting in line. Some were throwing glimpses their way, and Draco _knew_ their picture didn't make sense - he knew everyone expected Potter to be mouthing drunkenly at some smitten girl's neck, her pretty frame under his arm, and it was truly, entirely such a _preposterous_ idea, like Draco was the only one who'd noticed how short Potter was, how fidgety he could be when there was no one to ground him, how much he needed someone's arm around _him_ , someone's mouth to distract _him_ , to whisper in the privacy of his ear how beautiful, how precious, how bloody perfect he was. 

Or maybe those girls saw all of that, and simply didn't think Draco could do the part. 

'Not a fan of pacing yourself?' he asked, shifting so he was with his back to the line of girls, a wall between them and Potter, so that only he could see the boy's smiles and rosy cheeks, because sometimes it was ridiculously too tempting to pretend like he had any right in doing things like that. 

'Not when there's no reason to,' Potter said. He'd backed up against the wall for balance, and it made something inside Draco itch - for Potter could very well have used _him_ for support, just the most innocent of hands on the crook of Draco's arm, like he did with his friends. Draco wouldn't have minded. He might even have slid an arm around his waist, for the pure purpose of support. 

The man inside the loo went tumbling out. Both him and Potter stared at the open door for a moment. 

'You go ahead, Potter. I suspect you're in greater need than I am.' 

'Thanks,' Harry's smile was bright, and Draco was very, very pleased. Then, his eyes narrowed, and he stopped between Draco and the door. 'Is this you getting rid of me again?' 

'Potter, just go to the bloody loo.' 

He was answered with a chuckle, and then the door was being closed before him, and Draco was back by himself on the shadowed corner, just a little flushed himself, just a little shaking, because Potter and he had been _friendly_. They'd spoken almost casually; laughed almost peacefully, and they seemed now, to an odd observer, very much like the ordinary pair of friends waiting for each other by the loo. 

He stood by the door until Potter was done, shifting his weight impatiently from foot to foot. More than once, he was tempted to leave - he could preserve the exchange just as it had been, lovely and unspoiled, and not risk ruining it with further words. Still, he couldn't bring himself to go, not only because it seemed, at that moment, so very easy to pretend like he was Potter's friend, but also because Potter's words nagged him, a reminder of his past cowardness. He wouldn't leave this time. 

When at last Potter came back out, his hair was even more dishevelled, and his face was glistening with small droplets of water. 

'I didn't expect the loo to be so nice,' he commented. It made Draco a little dizzy, the way he was still speaking so normally, like he and Draco regularly engaged in idle chat. It made him dizzy, and it also made him utterly, completely speechless.

'Malfoy? Don't you want to use the loo?' 

'Oh,' Draco snapped back to life, gaze quickly darting away from Potter's confused expression, 'Yes.' 

It honestly was no cause for disappointment. Still, because Draco had been, since the war, unbearably sentimental, he found himself disappointed. Potter was supposed to know Draco had been waiting for him - like a friend, like someone who _cared_. He wasn't supposed to think Draco had stayed there to use the bathroom.

'Alright, then,' Harry gave a little wave, wavered a little where he stood, then held onto the railing with one firmly decided expression. 

Draco, in turn, stared hopeless at the bathroom for a moment, then at where Potter was just starting down the steps. 

'You're not thinking of going down those stairs by yourself, are you?' he ended up saying, rushed, impulsive, in the entirely wrong tone.

'Worried I'll fall, Malfoy?' Harry smirked. 

'No,' and still, feigning casual, like he did this often, like it was fucking _natural,_ like it hadn't been his nightly fantasy during 4th year, when the Yule Ball was approaching and Draco could barely function with how jealous he was of that Chang girl and later, surprisingly enough, of Parvati, because Potter truly considered everyone but him, he went to stand beside him on the steps and held out his arm, 'Come along, then.' 

Potter looked doubtful for one agonizing moment. Then, he linked his arm securely around Draco's.

'Turned out a gentleman, did you?' 

‘Always been one, Potter,’ Draco smirked as they began the descent, ‘To the right people.’ 

Potter laughed, something pretty and uninhibited that made him shake, ‘Come on, Malfoy, you were a tosser to everyone.’ 

Draco huffed. It was somewhat difficult, however, to conjure actual anger when Harry’s arm was still entwined with his.

‘I did have friends, you know?’ 

‘You had _minions,_ ’ Potter retorted with a roll of his eyes. 

‘And you have- Merlin, will you stop tilting to the right, you twat!’ 

Potter straightened at once, shook his head a little as if the position didn’t suit him, and then promptly toppled towards Draco, head hitting his shoulder, their sides impossibly squeezed together in the narrow stairwell. It almost felt indecent; Draco could feel the beginnings of a blush prickling his skin, all because Potter was leaning against him, linking arms with him, _trusting_ him to lead the way, and he had half a mind to lace an arm around Potter’s waist instead, just to keep him upright - maybe to see how their bodies would mold together -, but he didn’t have the _courage_ to do it. 

‘I swear, Potter, how much did you drink?’ he asked instead, trying to school his features into something the slightest bit akin to annoyance.

‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ Harry answered, looking up to give him a self-conscious smile, ‘Sorry, mate.’ 

It couldn’t have been that much. They’d arrived at Hogsmeade at the same time, after all.Then again, Draco had seen, on the nights where he’d spied the drunk, stumbling group around Hogsmeade, that Potter had the habit of getting too enthusiastic with shots - he’d make a point of drinking one with every friend, a brief special moment with each one, the two leaning close over the bar and whispering and smiling soft smiles before returning to the crowd, and because Potter knew _everyone_ , because he was just so fucking _nice_ , he’d finish his rounds at the end with his irises swirling in his eyes, his feet crisscrossing on the dirty floorboards of the pub. 

If he wanted to, though, Draco was sure he could have clung to the railing and gotten down the steps himself. Draco could, in theory, walk out on him. Because Draco wasn’t one to surrender his dignity easily, and now, crammed into that sorry little establishment balancing a drunk on his side, he was sure he looked ridiculous. 

He didn’t move an inch away from Harry, though. Of course not, because he’d fantasised too often about this intimacy, this familiarity, this casual permission to touch. No, this was what friends did - this was the space typically filled by Granger or some indistinct Weasley, and Draco planned to cherish it. 

If Pansy were seeing him now, never in her life would she stop laughing. 

‘What do I have?’ 

‘Whatever are you on about?’ 

‘You were saying something. I have…?’ Harry repeated as they reached the last of the steps. 

Draco thinned his lips into a line. 

‘You have fans. Not much different from minions.’

The exact same, honestly. For years, Draco had watched in resentment as everyone fawned over the famous Harry Potter, and he’d seen in their eyes that worship, that devotion that bled so fluidly into subservience. They’d do anything he asked, though the stupid, foolish, _lovely_ twat had never required more than bravery and loyalty. But, should he ever want more, those eager, adoring eyes would be prompt to help. 

It had always upset Draco, for he saw it in his own eyes as well.

‘Sod off, Malfoy,’ Harry snarled. He untangled their arms, tried to step to the side to create some distance between them, but the crowd was too dense, he was too unbalanced, and he ended up still pressed to Draco’s side. It wasn’t the same intimacy from before, however, warm and casual and _wanted_ \- Harry’s side was rigid now, tense, his arms crossed around himself as if to dispel the notion that one of them had once been linked with Draco’s, and his eyes surveyed the cramped bar from under furrowed brows. 

It made Draco feel even more unfit than when they were properly apart. At least then, when Draco would spy him from across the Great Hall and long to be sitting beside him, he’d be content in his own mind, not knowing what Potter actually thought of his fantasies. Now, he’d gotten that closeness; in turn, he was helpless to see Potter repulsed by it.

‘It seems your friends have left,’ he remarked. 

‘Seems so,’ was Harry’s curt response. Draco had ruined it, then, their earlier friendliness, beyond repair, ‘They should be outside,’ he started cutting through the crowd, stopped, turned to face Draco again, ‘Thanks.’ 

He left. Draco sighed and made his own way through the crowd, searching for Pansy. Now she would surely be happy - he hadn’t talked that much to Potter since eighth grade had begun, hadn’t _ever_ been that amicable with him -, and she’d consent when he asked to leave, and they could return to Hogwarts and forget the whole night had ever happened. He’d sweep it out his mind, treasure the picture of Potter’s hand in the crook of his arm and be content with it, only with it, and try nothing else. 

It was evident, after all, that Harry wasn’t receptive to more.

Pansy wasn’t where he’d last seen her. She wasn’t sitting in one of the tables, nor in the middle of the crowd. She wasn’t in line for the bathroom either. Draco flattened against a wall by the stairs and waited for a little while some lanky Ravenclaw blew smoke in his face, feeling the vibrations of the slow, low-toned music against his back, until he was sure Potter's group would have left - then, he ventured out into the cold street to look for Pansy. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter the night in Hogsmeade continues, complete with Draco's signature 'I don't like you but I love you so much' attitude. And there's candy. And more alcohol. See you Sunday~
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	3. A Night in Hogsmeade II

There was chatter outside. Lots of it.

A crowd. 

Fiery heads, then a fuzz of curly hair, a pale face too close to his:

'Malfoy! We were just-' Hermione said, eyes wide with surprise, just like when they'd crossed at Hog's Head. 

'Draco! Darling, there you are! Potter's been out for so long, where on Earth were you?' Pansy's gaze was secretly reproaching as she neared them, and openly mocking. 

'I was looking for you. Thought you wouldn't fancy being alone,' he glanced at Hermione and the rest of the group chattering behind her. 'Though clearly you're not.' 

Pansy's smirk was positively devilish. 

'Well, I was quite bored while you were… otherwise occupied, and Granger and I got to talking… they're going to the Three Broomsticks, did you know? Hagrid's supposed to be there - we're going to meet him, isn't that lovely?' 

Draco had searched in Hermione's ever-candid expression, when Pansy had so nonchalantly said 'we', for any signs of deject, but there were none, only a little disconcerted smile - and Pansy, by her account, seemed so gracefully smug already, as if there could be no further questioning that she'd won, that Draco didn't have it in him to argue. 

'Are we all here, then?' came Ron's voice, 'Malfoy, finally, did you fall in the fucking loo?' 

'We're all here, Ron,' Hermine said, drawing another polite smile before she turned to meet him. 'Let's get moving before Hagrid leaves.' 

The group, like one sentient beast, began walking in synchronicity. Draco could spot Lovegood a few steps ahead, talking to some girl; Thomas and Finnigan, even further up, far from the crowd and whispering lamely in each other's ears between fits of laughter; in the center, a cluster of swaying heads, where Hermione and Ron were headed, that was most likely harbouring Potter. All these people, this well-oiled machine that walked with the surety of a millipede, inside which each cog and gear was invaluable in its dynamic with the others, where every component worked in a well-practised harmony - a few feet behind, Draco and Pansy, sharp-faced and dark-clothed, foreign, clashing, slowing the rhythm and staining the joy. 

'You were _waiting_ for me?' 

'I couldn't very well leave you behind, could I? Oh, do hurry, Draco, we're losing them.'

Draco shuffled forward in a reluctant pace, shaking off Pansy's arm when it attempted to lace with his, an echo of Harry's. 

'What did you say to them, Pansy?' 

'No need to look so worried,' Pansy rolled her eyes and forcefully entwined their arms, pushing him forward so their pace quickened, 'I merely started talking to them, and then, when they were counting heads before they left, I mentioned that we were waiting for you. They're all quite drunk, Draco, no one thought much of it.' 

'Does Potter know?' 

Pansy laughed, which Draco admitted was quite justified. He truly was pitiful in how predictable his concerns were.

'He was the first one to agree.'

She smirked, because she knew the effect that would have on him - that the idea that Potter had agreed to wait for him, even after parting ways inside the pub on such a cold note, would fucking _floor_ him - and she tried to push him forward again, to approach the group, but Draco set his feet firmly on the cobblestone. 

'I don't know how to talk to these people.' 

'They're Gryffindors, not savages.' 

'I've hated all of them since first year!' 

'Not all of them,' she drawled, smile only widening when Draco glared at her in warning, 'All I'm saying is it wouldn't hurt to play nice. _He_ would like that.' 

It wasn’t like Draco had never thought about it. He remembered how resolute he’d been when 8th grade started: set on making amends with Potter’s friends. He would have charmed them, first with small, honest words that would earn him a neutral state as an acquaintance, later with enough polite trivialities to be considered, by temptative eyes, as a friend. And then, when Potter heard of Draco’s redemption, he’d already be insinuated into his group. 

A lovely plan, in theory. Lovely in practice too, except impossible. Because Draco had quickly discovered that acting regretful was difficult; sincere or not, it wounded his pride. It was unbearable, the thought of showing his remorse so meekly; and it was coded into his mind, being cold. 

So, if he couldn’t make friends with them then, why would now be any different? 

‘They’ll hate me.’

‘They already do. Surely it can’t get worse.’ 

At least that made him laugh, though it was a fickle little thing. Pansy rolled her eyes, and Draco saw in them, for a split second, some mischievous glint in them, right under the green shimmer, before she raised her voice:

‘Lovegood! Hey, Lovegood, dear, have I told you that your hair is absolutely fantastic?’ 

The girl turned to them, round eyes dazed. Draco tried to untangle his arm from Pansy’s, but it was in vain: she dragged him towards Luna and her friend, sweetness plastered on her face. 

‘It’s the same shade as Draco’s, wouldn’t you say? Don’t you agree, Draco?’

‘Yes. Yes,’ Draco nodded somewhat morosely, ‘It’s lovely, Lovegood. Luna.’ 

Draco was staring at the cobblestone as the four of them walked, but, judging by the cheerful lilt in her answer, he was certain she’d smiled. 

‘Like unicorn hair. I think I’d like hair like Ali’s though - just for a day, I think. To see if it’d feel different.’

Alicia Spinnet, as Draco recognized her now, bumped Luna’s side, though it seemed to offset her own balance more than anything else. They made quite the pair, the two of them - Luna, a year younger than him, small and reminiscing of a flower; Alicia, a year older, fierce in her fit, confident posture. He didn’t even understand why Alicia had returned to Hogwarts - she was supposedly retaking some N.E.W.T, but she simply spent all her time around the first year Quidditch novices, coaching them around with Madam Hooch.

'You'd look great,' Pansy intervened, 'Draco would look like a fright, if he had dark hair.' 

The girls laughed, Draco shuddered, and seemingly with that joke the tension eased. They continued in mild chatter in the outskirts of the group, Draco forcing himself to stare them in the eye and act casual, unperturbed, fucking _friendly_ , until they reached the Three Broomsticks. 

Once they walked inside, the members of the stumbling group, including Luna and Alicia, skittered off immediately to one of its corners, where a large round table was tucked, and began to chirp in excited tones. Draco could see, from where he was standing beside the door, flashes of a burly beard and broad shoulders between them.

'I had that man fired in third grade.' 

'So you did.' 

They huddled at the bar and ordered a butterbeer to share, leaning against the dark wooden frame as they watched the group catch up with Hagrid. It was one of those moments where Draco didn't belong - one of those photographs that could never include him, could never hope to remember him in the future.

It made something catch in Draco's throat. That expanse of air that precedes a sob - like the ones he'd choked on every night throughout sixth grade, after Potter had cast Sectumsempra on him -, except the sob never came. It just dug into muscle, its weight a constant ache. 

'I've a new question for you.' 

'Yes?'

'Do we know if The Chosen One likes men?' 

Draco froze with his lips on the brim of their glass. Slowly, and with his face reddening, he withdrew from it.

'He's friends with all genders, yes.' 

'Hilarious,' Pansy huffed, 'Does he fuck men?' 

'It doesn't matter, because I don't want to fuck Potter,' and he took a big swig of his drink, hoping the sickly sweet taste would tame the bitterness of those words. 

'You love him, but you don't want to fuck him?' Pansy looked pointedly at him, then gestured for him to hand over the glass, 'For a past Death Eater, darling, you're a wretched liar.' 

Draco sighed, tempted to persist on his lie, no matter how flimsy, simply because it was habit. Then again, that same fact, the idea that he'd never been open about it, prompted him some unruly honesty:

'He dances with guys sometimes. Mostly his Gryffindor friends.' 

And he felt so small saying it, so pathetic, like that absent fact, one he'd gathered from the nights he'd spent spying on Potter, presented any hope in his favour. 

Pansy, however, seemed ecstatic, and she tapped the glass loudly with her nails.

'Well, there you have it. How fortunate for you, I must admit.'

Draco gave a weak shrug. 'Perhaps he just likes the attention.'

Pansy laughed. 'Do you honestly think that boy does anything for attention? I imagine he's quite sick of it.' 

'Do you guys want a shot?' 

Longbottom's voice made them turn in surprise. He was standing a few steps away from them, looking absurdly proud of the words that had just come out of his mouth.

'Of course we do,' Pansy replied easily. They'd actually bought the butterbeer as a fleeting nod to sobriety, but Draco supposed this olive branch, given by perhaps the purest and most virtuous of Potter's group, could not be wasted. 

Neville nodded, a flop of dark brown hair hanging from his forehead, and called the attention of the bartender.

‘Nothing too strong, aye?’ Draco managed to say, though he’d twisted his voice into a parody of his own, all soft and rounded. 

Pansy sniggered, when she heard it. Neville’s smile, though - and how strange it was to see it, in a face usually so modest - seemed almost approving. 

Shots poured, each one raised theirs in hand, forming a little circle by the bar. 

‘You know, it’s cool, you know, that you’re here,’ Neville said, ‘We don’t mind. Most of us, that is.’ 

Draco nodded. Neville’s words, even in the haphazard way they’d been spoken, rose something solemn and grateful in him. A foreign sense of relief, a bashful hope for acceptance. 

‘Thank you, Neville.’ 

‘To the end of the war,’ Pansy raised her glass, ‘And to a peaceful year at Hogwarts at last.’

Daisyroot Draught, by the conserved floral taste it left in his tongue. Mild, but worrying when added to what he’d already drunk. Neville, on the other hand, seemed to take it in stride, shaking his head and thrumming with energy. 

It was out of Draco’s character, but the alcohol was urgent in his bloodstream, and, from behind Neville’s shoulder, the view of Potter walking towards them emboldened him - so, swallowing the preposterous panic inside him, he brought a hand up to squeeze Neville’s shoulder for one firm moment, in a gesture he hoped would cement the beginnings of this friendship. 

‘Having a shot without me, are you?’ Potter said as he neared the group. His arms were wrapped around himself, and Draco was suddenly aware that it was cold inside the pub, the stone walls and dim lighting making it feel almost hostile, and why did no one offer him a fucking jacket? 

‘You know the rules, Harry. You, Fletchley and Sue can’t drink for two venues.’ 

‘I know, I know,’ Harry tried to glare at Neville, but it ended up fond. Draco slid his hand neatly from Neville’s shoulder, and watched with secret glee as Potter tracked the movement. ‘Anyway, we don’t have enough seats to stay here, we’re thinking of heading back to Hog’s Head. You opposed?’ 

‘Not at all, though-’ 

‘Sickles on the bar, mates!’ came Ron’s voice, loud and excited. The rest of the group was moving towards them, huddled together to take up as little space as possible. ‘We’re all having a shot before we go.’ 

‘We just had one, mate,’ said Neville, jerking when Ron laced an arm over his shoulders. 

‘Then you have another one,’ Ron shrugged and rested his hands on the bartop. ‘Harry, you too, Sue saw some friends and drank with them, so the rule’s off. And take my fucking coat already, you’re a breeze away from freezing.’ 

‘I’m fine, man,’ Potter scoffed, and Draco wanted to roll his eyes. So Potter’s friends, inattentive Gryffindors as they were, had actually noticed his ungodly choice of clothes. It was Potter, of course, that refused to put on a decent amount of layers.

‘I’m sorry, what exactly are these rules I keep hearing about? Pansy intervened, an eyebrow cocked. 

The shots were being poured in a row of shining glasses, countless elbows resting impatiently on the bartop. Ron scratched his nose, confused for a moment, before his eyes focused on Pansy. 

‘You fall, you don’t drink in the next two places we go to.’ 

Draco huffed, a smirk creeping on his face. ‘You fell, Potter?’ 

Harry, on his part, met Draco’s gaze without a trace of shame. 

‘As soon as I left Kettle Bottom.’ 

Wasn’t that a revelation? That Harry had fallen moments after foregoing Draco’s support? That, if Draco had kept things friendly inside the pub, Potter might have left their arms linked, and Draco could have helped him down the steps and onto the street? That he could have so easily _helped_?

There was a retort somewhere that he could have used, something akin to flirtation, if he was bolder. But Potter’s friends were there, Pansy was staring, and Potter’s unfaltering expression, all humour and courage and _dare_ , made him, in turn, feel weak. 

‘A’ight, mates, drink up!’ someone from the other edge of the bar shouted. 

‘I’m going to get extraordinarily drunk,’ Draco pointed out, holding his shot glass with care. 

‘That’s the plan, Malfoy,’ Ron scoffed - there was a hint of annoyance there, but subdued, without harm, and Draco figured it was a good start. 

They counted down and drank their shots. It wasn’t Daisyroot this time; it burnt and itched like Firewhiskey. 

Draco was going to get _fucked_.

Hermione, meanwhile, neared them, licking her lips in distaste. ‘Ready to go?’ 

They assented, and Draco saw someone - some boy from Hufflepuff, he believed - counting heads before they left into the cold night again. Pansy, shivering in her bare legs, held onto him with white-knuckled fingers, tilting her head down against the sudden gusts of wind. They were halfway back to Hog’s Head, and Draco was keeping his gaze trained on the back of Potter’s head, that swayed carefree as he laughed with Luna up ahead, when he heard Finnigan’s voice pipe up amidst the scattered chatter. 

‘Hold on, I need to fucking piss.’ 

Ron, who was a few steps away from him, whispering something into Granger’s ear, jerked his head with a disbelieving look.

‘We came outside just two minutes ago.’ 

‘Well, Nature’s calling _now_.’ 

‘Just do it here, mate,’ Alicia suggested, though her lips were twisted into a smirk. Finnigan stared down at the striped green wall beside him with an appraising frown. 

‘We could go to Honeydukes,’ said Luna in her usual serene tone. A whispering of excitement spread through the scattered group. ‘It’s closer than Hog’s Head.’ 

Draco watched as various heads turned to each other in questioning, a succession of confirmations rippling through the crowd. No one asked them, nor had Draco assumed they would, and the decision was made in less than a minute. 

‘Off to Honeydukes we go, then,’ Ron shouted, and the different little subgroups began their synchronized walk, turning left on the narrow, slippery cobblestone streets. 

‘We’re getting _candy_?’ Pansy’s tone came close to horrified. Draco sighed, then stared out at Harry, whose eyes were alight with some mischievous, childlike enthusiasm as he fronted the group in a quick pace with Luna. 

‘I suppose it’s not that bad.’ 

The windows of the candy shop were neon bright, swirling in fluorescent pinks and greens. A sickeningly sweet fragrance hung in the chilly air outside. Finnigan was the first to get in, a bell chirping high-pitched as he opened the door. The others filtered in after, more than a few tripping on the small step, and Pansy and Draco entered last. 

Inside, a grating song evoking of a carnival was playing, a short, bald man was half-dozing on the counter, and the group dispersed throughout the little corridors with bags and tongs, looking a lot like excited children. Pansy was swept into a conversation with Sue, something about the charms on one specific type of coloured lollipop that Draco had no interest in, so he wandered idly through the store, feeling very much out of place in his sombre features and black outfit, hoping for a glimpse of Harry. 

He found him at last alone in one of the corridors, inspecting a box of treacle tarts with a furrowed brow. 

‘A bit of a hassle to carry, no?’ he asked, leaning against the frame of the shelf. 

‘Yeah, but they’re my favourite,’ Harry sighed. He didn’t seem much troubled by Draco’s presence, which qualmed Draco’s nerves. 

Draco, of course, knew those were Potter’s favourite. He knew, because for years he’d watched him swipe them greedily off the Gryffindor table at the Great Hall; because he’d spied him eating them with his friends in Hogsmeade, and wished he were able to make fun of him for his obsession not in a vicious way, but in a fond tone; because, during sixth year, when they’d learnt how to make Amortentia, he’d heard Potter had smelled treacle tarts, and felt a pang of heartache, since the first scent he himself had caught was the one of Potter’s hair. 

He knew, and the alcohol had surely made him overly sentimental, because he couldn’t bear the thought of Potter not getting them. 

‘We can split a box.’ 

Harry raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching up into a skeptical smirk. ‘Do you even like treacle tarts?’ 

Draco looked at the nasty, saccharine little pastries. ‘Not particularly.’ 

‘Then why waste your money on it?’ 

‘Because you’re drunk, and I fear you’ll cry if you don’t get them.’

The smile Harry gave him was so genuine it made Draco’s stomach clench - and he pictured an alternate reality where he could have wrapped Potter in his arms, steadied him against his chest and bought the damn box without having to lie about his reasons. Where Harry knew Draco loved him, and he didn’t have to hide, terrified that any nicety would be too revealing. 

Still, the true reality, where Harry was still smiling that disbelieving little smile of his, wasn’t that unpleasant. 

‘There’s still the problem of carrying it.’

Draco rolled his eyes. ‘Buy the fucking tarts, Potter. I’ll carry the box.’ 

Harry’s smile only widened, growing a shade wicked. 

‘Thanks, Malfoy,’ he said, and skittered out the corridor, towards the counter. Draco stood there a little while longer, willing his heartbeat to slow. His father had always said he was terrible at hiding his nerves: trembling, thrumming with fright when the Death Eaters met, when Voldemort entered the room, when he was assigned a task. Too emotional - that’s why he always failed. 

For an eighteen years old, Draco thought he was doing rather fine. 

When he managed to round the corner of the shelf and return to the center of the shop, the other members of the group were queued in front of the tired man, dangling bursting bags in their restless hands. Draco leaned against a wall, watching as each of them counted the coins on their palms with slow, fuzzy minds. He figured Honeydukes made a fortune out of drunk Hogwarts students. 

Harry was one of the last ones in line. When he finished paying, he walked straight towards Draco, holding the box like it was a treasured possession. Draco, who was used to either spying Potter from afar or to face him with a sneer, had to clear his throat before he could ask: 

‘How much was it?’

Harry didn’t even look away from the box. ‘Six sickles.’ 

Draco huffed, though he promptly handed over his share of the money.

‘Of course you’d like the most expensive sweets in the wizardry world.’ 

Harry rolled his eyes. He didn’t seem even the slightest bit guilty as he pocketed Draco’s money, nor when he handed Draco the box, which Draco thought was fair: he had offered, after all. 

Justin Fletchley finished paying his embarrassing amount of chocolate frogs, and they all left the shop. Outside, the wind had lifted up, and Ron began counting heads again as they shivered in the street. 

‘What sweets do you like, then?’ 

Draco tried his best to pry his eyes away from the curve of Harry’s neck, where the skin was flushing from the cold. ‘None.’ 

‘Is that why you’ve been so sour all these years?’ 

‘Mostly, though the Death Eater business was also a factor,’ Draco retorted, and smirked when he heard Potter laugh, before he leaned into Draco to swipe a tart out of the box, biting out half of it. 

‘I can’t believe you don’t like these,’ he huffed, seeming blissful as he chewed it. The group had started walking back towards Hog’s Head, meanwhile, everyone excited with their indulgently filled bags, flittering between each other to swipe different pieces of candy. Up ahead, Pansy was speaking to Hermione and Alicia while they shared a handful of sherbet lemons. 

Harry and he hung a bit back, in the edges of the group. It made Draco heady, knowing that Harry was choosing to stay behind with him, while his friends were just a few steps away. It made him feel like they were _friends_. 

‘I’ve no idea how you haven’t died of sugar overdose,’ he said, glancing at all the tarts stacked neatly inside the box. 

When Harry stared up at him, his lips twisted into something mocking. ‘Haven’t you heard? I’m the Boy Who Lived.’

‘Oh, you’re hilarious,’ Draco’s tone was dry, but he couldn’t suppress a chuckle. ‘Potter, will you do me a favour?’ 

The drunken glaze on Harry’s eyes, that made them shine a brighter green, was ridiculously endearing. 

‘What?’ 

‘Take my fucking coat.’

Harry let out a surprised laugh. ‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’ 

‘Bullshit,’ Draco pushed the treacle tart box onto Harry's hands and shrugged out of his peacoat. ‘Here, before you freeze.’ 

In clumsy, haphazard movements, and with a persistent glare, Harry slid his arms into the grey sleeves. It looked too large on him, swallowed him up in fabric, and he looked warm for the first time that night, and Draco was _proud_. 

Not to mention strangely breathless, seeing Harry in his coat. 

They reached the cavernous door of the Hog’s Head at last, and the group entered in a cluster. It was the Weird Sisters that was playing now, lilting and hypnotic in the liquor-scented air. The pub was somewhat crowded, but the patrons were mostly leaning against the bar, or dancing at the back of the pub, under the spiderweb covered beams. 

‘Oy! There’s tables here, hurry up!’ shouted Dean Thomas, already cutting through the crowd. Draco turned to speak to Potter - to ask, if he was bold enough, if he wanted to get a drink -, but then Harry was stepping forward in a wave of grey - _his_ coat, hanging from Harry’s figure, and how often had Draco seen that in his dreams? - and disappearing between the others. 

Draco clenched his jaws, staring bitterly at the box in his hands, then moved to get a seat at the tables. 

He ended up compressed between Pansy’s unfaltering elegance and Fletchley’s drunken grin. Potter wasn’t even on the same table as him - all Draco could do was catch glimpses of his raven hair between Luna’s and Sue’s heads, sometimes a second of his lips as they widened into a grin - and he was sitting next to Finnigan, and Draco remembered the conversation he’d had with Pansy by the lake, though the words were blurred and out of place. The rumor had been that Finnigan and Harry had fucked, and Draco knew they hadn’t - he’d checked -, but he’d seen them dancing, close and with teasing smiles, and Finnigan had whispered into Harry’s ear like his lips had any right to graze his skin, and he’d pressed a hand against his back like he wanted something to happen… So they hadn’t fucked, but perhaps they would. Perhaps they’d sneak onto the dancefloor when Draco wasn’t looking, and Finnigan would be the one to slip Draco’s coat off Harry’s shoulders. 

When he couldn’t take more of the excited, erratic chatter of his table, couldn’t bear faking another smile nor utter another polite word, he leaned closer to Pansy to murmur: 

‘I might leave you for the other table.’ 

‘About time,’ Pansy rolled her eyes. She looked terribly bored. 

‘And I might tell Finnigan you want to talk to him.’ 

‘I hope you know, darling, that you’ll be carrying my books for the rest of the month.’ 

Draco kissed her cheek, primly ignored the smirk she gave him, and walked to the other table. They were all quite drunk, speaking too loudly, too incoherently, but he still felt unsure as she approached the group. They could look at him, after all, and remember all he’d been. All he still was, that they’d always hated. 

‘Finnigan! Seamus, hey!, Pansy wanted to talk to you about something.’ 

Finnigan looked at him with wide, confused eyes. Draco got a few stray looks - one from Harry, that made him bite the inside of his cheek - but otherwise the heated conversation continued. 

‘Who’s Pansy?’

Draco suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. ‘Parkinson.’ 

‘Who’s Parkinson?’ 

‘Merlin, Seamus,’ Hermione piped up, squeezing the bridge of her nose, ‘Just go.’ 

‘Aye,’ Finnigan saluted, tripped as he shimmied out of his chair, then stumbled past Draco. Hermione gave him a small smile before sipping her drink, and Draco, feeling almost hysterical, his stomach twisted with nerves, took the empty seat next to Potter.

Harry watched him sit down with a smirk that unsettled him. 

‘You taking Seamus’s seat?’ 

Draco shrugged. ‘He’s taking mine.’ 

Potter snorted. ‘What _did_ Pansy want, anyway?’ 

‘She didn’t say,’ and he didn’t even try to be convincing, simply leaned back against the chair and ignored Harry’s skeptical frown. 

It was an improvement, sitting next to Potter. Surreal, when he thought back to all the times he’d loitered in the streets as he spied the Golden Group. Now, he had a space among it, and though he didn’t particularly care for many of the members - Ron and the way his voice went shrill from the alcohol, Alicia who insinuated into every conversation at least one Quidditch metaphor - it was worth it, because they were Harry’s friends, and he was there with them, listening absently and smiling politely like he almost _belonged_ , like he’d been invited, like he could maybe ever be one of the gears in that harmonious machine. They were discussing something, a heated argument about House Elves, and Draco hung back without the urge to chime in, content basking in this new reality, in this picture he’d dreamt of for so long. 

After a while, however, it itched, Potter’s presence so close. Itched like it had always itched, ever since he’d met him: he’d solved it with aggression, before, with sharp words and cold eyes, because the only way to have Harry close to him without being too telling had been to shove him against a wall. The habit crept up on him, now, the compulsion to have Potter’s attention all to himself at least for a _moment_ \- it was only fair, really, in Draco’s mind, since his own attention was invariably on Potter. Aggression wasn’t an option anymore, however, and there weren’t many other ways to justifiably twist his fingers in Harry’s shirt like he so desperately craved, so he just sat there stewing, bobbing one angulous knee impatiently, and staring as he laughed and spoke so carefree, so breathtaking in his happiness, all tousled hair and crooked glasses, a lovely blush on his cheeks. 

He was still wearing his coat, though, and he hadn’t taken Ron’s but he’d taken _his_ , and that’s what broke Draco’s silence in the end. 

‘I’m cold,’ he said, leaning the slightest bit towards Harry.

‘Want your coat back?’ 

‘No. Come get a drink with me.’ 

He’d fantasized saying those words at least a thousand times. He’d never thought he’d actually say them, and they felt heavy in his tongue. 

Potter just glanced at him, one eyebrow raised high over the edge of his glasses, and then stood up: 

‘We’re getting a drink,’ he announced, though no one paid much attention amidst the heated discussion, and left Draco to follow him in a hurry. 

They walked over to the bar and sat on two free stools. 

‘What do you want?’ Draco asked, because this was as close to a date as they’d ever be, and he planned to pay. 

‘Depends. What are you up for, Malfoy?’ 

Harry’s eyes were sparkling with challenge, and Draco knew it was the height of irresponsibility, and he’d always despised those that drank recklessly, that allowed themselves that kind of vulnerability, but Harry’s words, the charged look he gave him, made Draco think of another scenario, one where Harry would say the exact same words except they’d be infinitely closer, and their eyes would be on each other’s lips, and so Draco answered like he hoped he would in that picture:

‘Anything, Potter.’

The corner of Harry’s mouth tweaked into a smirk. ‘A’ight, but it’s not my fault if you fall over. Oy! Four shots of lobe-blaster, please!’ 

Draco quirked a brow. Potter thrummed his fingers - half-hidden by the sleeves of Draco’s jacket - on the bartop, his eyes dark green with something devilish. 

‘It’s american. They keep it on the back of the shelf.’ 

The liquid looked like thick oil, and smelt acrid. Harry held each of his shots in one hand, while Draco looked at his with a hint of regret - he prided himself in drinking responsibly, he always kept his _composure_. 

‘Scared?’ 

‘Sod off.’ 

Harry laughed. ‘One right after the other, yeah?’ 

With a sigh, Draco nodded. Harry counted down, an excited urgency in his voice, and they both let the shot slither down their throats. It burnt, it left a scorching trail, like it was flaying the inside of his mouth, and it pooled right at the base of his neck, spreading an afflicting heat there. Still, Draco didn’t allow himself to breathe before downing the second one. He was certain his vision had flashed white as he tipped his chin up, and it was only with great effort that he didn’t cough when he slammed the little glass down.

Harry, when his vision cleared, was staring at him with triumphant eyes. The flush on his face had darkened, his lips were shiny and parted open as he took in an avid breath, and Draco really fucking wanted to kiss him. 

‘You alright there, Malfoy?’ 

Draco smiled, unperturbed, as if he hadn’t been on the verge of a coughing fit a millisecond ago.

‘Stellar. How much do these sorry things cost, anyway?’ 

‘Don’t worry about it. They’re on me.’ 

Draco rolled his eyes. The music figured to him very loud, though the Weird Sisters were more the soothing type, and it was slightly difficult to keep his head upright on his neck, and Draco really shouldn’t have taken on Potter’s dare. 

‘If you keep paying for everything, you’ll end up begging for change outside of Gringotts,’ he managed, taking some money out of his own pocket with one slow, stunted hand. 

‘I don’t pay for everything,’ Harry huffed; but his features softened into something self-conscious when Draco just stared at him with an expectant gaze. Then, he frowned. ‘How’d you know, anyhow?’ 

Draco very decidedly stared at the bartop. ‘I’m observant.’ 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Potter shrug: 

‘It’s no trouble, really. I love them.’ 

‘Perhaps you should allow them to love you back,’ Draco said, because, yes, Potter did everything for his friends, and Potter’s friends would surely do anything for him, but he didn’t _let_ them. Because Potter deserved to wear someone else’s jacket when he was cold, and to have someone fuss over his diet, to carry shit for him when he was tired, to do up his tie because the twat could _never_ knot it neat, to _undo_ his tie after a long day, to kiss him gentle and share his stress, his pain, his happiness. He deserved to let himself be loved. 

In Draco’s head, his words sounded an awful lot like: Please allow _me_ to love you.

He leaned forward, crossing his arms over the bartop and trying to resist the urge to rest his head on them. He could see Harry mirror his pose. When he turned to stare at him, they were both leaning over the bartop, their faces disconcertingly close. 

‘You look good in my jacket,’ he said, staring softly at the way the collar grazed Harry’s flushed neck. 

Harry snorted. ‘You dress like a vampire.’ 

‘Don’t think it suits me, Potter?’ he asked, aiming for disinterested, trying to hide the disappointment in his tone. He knew he shouldn’t have let Pansy dress him all in black - he’d seen the boys Potter danced with, all wide grins and bright colours, dripping life. 

But Harry just looked at him, unwavering, casual. 

‘It suits you.’ 

Draco, for the life of him, couldn’t think of anything clever to say. It was just as well, because a moment later Dean Thomas patted both their shoulders, making them turn with a start:

‘We’re going dancing, mates, care to join?’ 

Draco glanced pitifully at the dancefloor - a sea of bright spots under a dozen floating lights, a mess of bodies and movement that left him dizzy just from the sight. There was no possible way he could dance without falling over, and he’d never give Harry, nor any of his friends, that satisfaction. 

‘I believe I’ll pass.’ 

Harry regarded him with a nearly reproving expression. 

‘You’re terribly uptight, Malfoy,’ he said, and then he was standing, shrugging off of Draco’s coat and leaving for the dancefloor, Dean Thomas’s arm flung over his shoulders. 

Draco watched bitterly as Harry joined his friends with a carefree smile, like he’d already forgotten his existence, like the conversation between them had been pleasant, sure, but unremarkable. 

To Draco, it had been one of the best things to have happened in his life. 

And he’d ruined it. 

His coat was still dangling limply from the other stool. The idea of putting it on, of sharing Harry’s warmth, was so decadent he daredn’t do it. Instead, he simply stared at it, picturing the way it had contrasted against Harry’s pale skin just a moment ago. 

After a while of pointedly resisting the urge to look at the dancefloor, and considering having another shot of that american stuff he’d been introduced to, someone swung an arm over his hunched back. 

‘You fucked it up, didn’t you?’ 

‘Spectacularly,’ he murmured, leaning his head on Pansy’s side.

‘Does that mean we can finally leave?’ 

‘Absolutely.’

He pushed onto his feet unsteadily, grabbing his coat with an almost hesitant touch. Truly, he had no idea how Harry had bounced back so readily after drinking those shots. 

When they were out of the bar, and the music was just a distant murmuring on the cold, lonely street, he huffed:

‘He called me uptight.’ 

Pansy snorted. ‘Sounds about right.’ 

‘Sod off,’ he hissed, but it sounded more miserable than anything. 

Pansy laughed again as they turned a corner, the train station coming into view against the dark sky.

'Cheer up, dear, it wasn’t a completely wasted night. I saw: he wore your coat.’ 

Draco sighed, staring at the grey fabric bunched against his chest. It was still warm. 

‘Yes, he did.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	4. A Game With Veritaserum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, can you imagine how high the stakes would be in a drinking game with Veritaserum?

Draco had truly done a horrible thing by going out that night. 

_Pansy_ had coerced him into doing a terrible thing. 

Because it felt more and more like a dream now, as the days went past. The first morning, yes, with an awful headache, a turbulent stomach and an eyesight that spun black each time he stood, he’d had no choice but to remember the previous night in each vivid, gruesome, _wonderful_ detail - and when he’d at last managed to drag his hunched, dehydrated body to the Great Hall, and seen the other Gryffindors sitting in an awkward bunch on one end of the long table, hiding their shrunken faces between their hands, pointedly facing away from the professors and staring at empty plates and dripping mugs of coffee, he’d been blown away by the realization that he’d spent the night _with_ them, he’d _drunk_ with them, he’d been - for one night - a part of Potter’s group. Not a Slytherin, not a Death Eater, not a Malfoy. He’d been Draco, detached of his past, and they’d been _friends_.

But the problem was: the night had passed. 

And he hadn’t sat next to them. Under the bleak daylight, inside Hogwarts’s walls, it didn’t work like that. Hungover, _sober_ , he wasn’t brave, and he wasn’t _just_ Draco. 

That first day, he’d ended up turning on his heels and leaving the Great Hall without eating a thing. He’d holed up in his room instead and tried to forget. 

Not that it had worked. Because he closed his eyes and he saw neon flashes. He turned corners in the cold corridors, glimpsed at a red and golden tie, and could only think of the pale skin of Harry’s neck under his grey coat. He ate and he felt the sickly sweet taste of treacle tarts on his tongue.

He tried to sleep and was overcome with restlessness. He’d look out the frosted window from his bed and wonder if the group was at Hogsmeade that exact moment, walking the streets without him. 

He’d close his eyes and see Harry’s face and hear his words: ‘You’re terribly uptight, Malfoy.'

So yes, Draco had done a terrible thing. He never should have gone. He’d gotten one night of everything he dreamt, and it was ruining his life. 

Slowly, he got back to his old rhythm. He’d walk through the halls with his chin up and his eyes cold; he’d retreat in the edges of the school - the greenhouses, the lake, the first scattered trees of the Forbidden Forest -, where he could loosen his composure and relax away from hateful eyes. He talked to Blaise, Pike and the other 8th grade Slytherins. He talked to Pansy and ignored each attempt she made to talk about that night. He watched the Golden Group from afar, and suppressed the urge to distort their voices, when he heard them hushed and calm in class, into the joyful, uninhibited high-pitches he’d been witness to. He tried to hate Potter, so he’d feel a little less heartbroken. 

He was almost better, almost back to some semblance of normal, when one night, as he sat, driven by insomnia, reading in the Slytherin common room, he heard a crash coming from the corridor.

He placed his book down gingerly and, sweeping a wisp of silvery hair - unicorn hair, as Luna had called it - from his eyes, he peeked out the entrance to the commons into the cold corridor of the dungeons. 

There, staring intently at a dusty helmet that laid on the rough stone floor, was none other than Ron Weasley. 

‘Malfoy! Right, mate, I was just… it fell, you see?’ he gestured vaguely at the helmet, then at the armour lining the wall. 

He was quite obviously drunk, and at once Draco was reminded of that surreal night at Hogsmeade, and something in him ran very cold. 

‘What are you doing here, Weasley?’ 

Ron looked around the bleak, shadowed hall. ‘Got lost.’ 

‘Going _where_?’ 

Ron seemed to think very hard for a moment, before he broke into hushed laughter. 

‘Wanted to find your bloody common room, see if it’d changed since…’

Draco raised his eyebrows when Ron’s voice trailed off. ‘Since when?’ he prompted, but the other boy simply shook his head in some secretive amusement. Had he ever been in the Slytherin commons? Had Potter? ‘Are you alone out here?’ 

Apparently, it had not been a wise question to ask, since Ron reddened with anger.

‘Yeah, I am, so no need to go mouthing off about how the Gryffindors-’ 

‘Mate, I got them!’ 

Seamus Finnigan had just rounded the corner, freezing with a pair of keys in his outstretched hand when his wild gaze found Draco. 

Ron had the decency to look somewhat apologetic, at least, and the flush on his face softened to one of embarrassment. 

Draco tried to keep calm, though the realization that the group had very evidently gone on another night out - that they hadn’t invited him - stung bitter inside him. 

‘Whose keys are those?’ 

‘None of your business, Malfoy,’ Ron muttered, at the same time as Seamus bit out a passionate ‘Sod off’.

They weren’t exactly whispering, the three of them, and Draco wondered if anyone up in the dormitories, perhaps some other insomniac, would hear. He even had the temptation to wake his colleagues himself, or, even worse, to wake a teacher. But that was the echo of the pest he’d been years ago, set on making everyone else as miserable as he felt. Draco had adopted a much more detached outlook now, which consisted on letting everyone be as stupid as they pleased, as long as they did so away from him. 

With that thought in mind, he was about to retreat into the common room again, letting the two drunk boys go on with their undoubtedly terrible plan while he wallowed in peace, when Harry’s words resurfaced wicked in his head: uptight, he’d been called. Uptight, which was to say the polar opposite of Potter - spontaneous and brave and fun. 

‘Alright then,’ he found himself saying, ‘I think I’ll join you.’

And to illustrate his point, he impulsively closed the entrance to the common area, watching it convert back to smooth, inconspicuous stone. 

‘No bloody way you’re joining us,’ Ron scoffed, and he swayed dangerously when he bent down to retrieve the fallen helmet. 

Draco walked nearer to them, sighing when he saw them tense. He’d thought at least _something_ had changed that night, but apparently he was still their favoured antagonist. 

‘You know, I won’t tell. I don’t care what you twats do,’ he shrugged, ‘I just think watching it might be entertaining. Besides, when your plan goes to shit, which it inevitably will, it might do you good to have a clear head with you.’ 

They both looked at him intently, then exchanged a glance Draco couldn’t decipher. 

‘Come on, then. We’re headed to the first floor,’ Ron said at last. Seamus huffed a laugh, and they both started around the corner. 

Draco allowed himself a small, victorious smile before he followed them. It was slightly unbelievable, that he was strolling around the dungeon halls with Weasley and Finnigan. He wasn’t sure if he’d made the right choice. All he knew was Weasley better tell Potter about it. 

When they passed the Potions classroom, the door opened in a swing. 

‘He doesn’t keep the essay prompts in his desk,’ Dean Thomas said, holding onto the doorknob with both hands, ‘Ron, mate, why are you holding a head?’

Everyone stared at the helmet still in Ron’s hand. Draco was beginning to regret his decision. 

‘Fuck if I know. I’ll just… toss it,’ and there was a sharp clatter as he threw the helmet inside the Potions classroom. 

Thomas finally noticed Draco, then. There was one distinctive second of confusion, and Draco schooled his features, were he told to leave, but Dean simply nodded, once, twice, and stretched an arm toward him, showing him a jumble of cans.

‘Fancy a beer, mate?’ 

‘Muggle?’ 

‘Dragon Scale.’ 

Draco took a can out of the plastic net. Dean closed the door gingerly, and the four of them continued their way to the stairwell. Each of the other boys ended up taking their own beer, and Sean and Dean huddled together in their usual erratic whispers. Draco, taking big gulps of his beer for courage, neared Ron as they started up the stairs. 

‘Slughorn’s keys?’ 

‘Right.’ 

‘What do you plan to do with it?’ 

Ron glanced at him, and those mischievous eyes under strands of fiery hair reminded Draco of the older Weasleys, the twins. He knew one of them had died in the war, but couldn’t remember which. At the thought, he took a few gulps of his drink. 

‘You’re the potions geek, Malfoy. What could Slughorn open on the first floor?’ 

Draco tapped his fingers over the can contemplatively. But then they were up the final steps, and the first flashes of golden thread and rich red came into view. 

The Tapestry corridor. 

And in it, against one of the covered walls, Harry and Neville, all close, shoulders bumping, similar, from afar, in their mop of dark hair and vulnerable smile. They held some gold-tinted glass bottle between then, and Harry's neck was stretched in an elegant line, bathed in moonlight, and he was in his slacks and white undershirt - did he _never_ wear a jacket? - and Draco _loved_ him. 

Loved him, and it was even more painful, even worse to bear, because now he'd seen how it would be to be his friend, to lend him his coat, to talk to him and drink with him and do him silly favours to make him smile. 

'Malfoy's here?' Neville's voice was a nervous whisper, raising in waves from the alcohol. He turned his head to look at Harry in question, and his lips were almost on his cheek, and Harry laughed, and it was friendly and carefree and Draco _ached_ for that intimacy. 

'He heard me,' Ron grumbled. Draco ignored how annoyed he sounded. 

'You here to ruin anything, Malfoy?' Harry asked, features guarded in that usual protectiveness of his. 

'Relax, Potter. I'm just here to watch the show,' he answered as plainly as possible, that detached inflection he was never brave enough to shake from his tone. The boys he'd come with leaned against the tapestries as well. Ron swiped the bottle from Neville and Harry's grip, and tilted it into his mouth. Draco started his second beer in nervous and majorly irresponsible gulps. 

'What were you doing that was so loud?' Neville asked, something frightened in his eyes. Of course, because everyone, after all this time, still feared the Slytherins. 

To be fair, Draco supposed that wasn't unwise. Their reputation wasn't wholly undeserved. 

'I was looking for the commons,' Ron waved the bottle around aimlessly. 'He found me.' 

'He knocked over an armour,' Draco drawled, just to see if Harry laughed. He did, a crooked-lip thing that the others echoed, and that made Ron flush anew. 

'Just the helmet,' he tried, but his voice ran unsteady, and he brought a hand to his forehead. 'Bloody hell, I threw it into the Potions classroom, didn't I?' 

Seamus and Dean suppressed a pair of high-pitched laughter. Neville looked scandalized, and Harry's grin was disbelieving. 

'You fucking idiot,' he snorted and moved to lace his arm over Ron's hunched shoulders. 'It's alright, mate, I reckon it'll be quite the surprise for Slughorn.' 

They dissolved into laughter again. Draco stared absently at the restless way Harry's fingers thrummed over Ron's shoulder. He wondered if they'd slept at all. If they ever slept, or if they just ran along the castle, hyped on coffee and alcohol and Honeydukes candy, doing all the childish things they hadn't had the chance to do before the end of the war. 

'Did you see the commons, then?' Harry asked, guiding the bottle, still in Ron's hand, to his own lips, 'Have they changed much?' 

'I didn't, no,' Ron said miserably. There it was again, this strange inkling that they'd been in the Slytherin common room, but before Draco could enquire further Seamus was speaking:

'Well, we got the keys,' he unearthed the rusty ring from the depths of his cloak. 'So it wasn't a complete failure, even if Ron woke half the school.' 

'Fuck off,' Ron said, a high crack in his voice, and he drank from the bottle again. 

Draco, meanwhile, was staring at the keys with one calm eyebrow raised on his forehead. He was beginning to realize why they were in the Tapestry Corridor. 

'What are you stealing? Polyjuice?'

'Veritaserum,' Dean Thomas said, flashing his teeth proudly. 

Draco nodded. His head felt heavy - if from the surrealism of the situation, or the two beers he'd downed so quickly, he didn't know. 

'What will you use it for?' 

'A game,' Harry said simply, but his smile was lopsided, secretive. In any sense, a game involving veritaserum sounded dangerous - Draco had always cherished his ability to lie. 

'Will it still be there?' asked Neville, tone nervous again. 'Wasn't it, you know… _his_?' 

The word was spoken with the vaguest sentiment, the most anonymous grief, and Ron, Seamus and Dean all glanced down awkwardly. 

Harry bumped Neville's side softly. 'They were Snape's potions, but Slughorn must not have moved them.' 

'The problem,' Dean piped up, 'Is if he hexed it.' 

'Shouldn't Granger be here to help with that?' Draco asked, because that group, made almost entirely of idle courage, did not seem quite able to deal with incantations. 

'Don't be daft,' Ron rolled his eyes, 'What we're doing is bloody stupid. She didn't want to have anything to do with it.' 

It _is_ stupid, isn't it?' Seamus mused, though he seemed curious, not worried, as he sipped on his beer. 'What if we get caught?' 

They all exchanged these looks, this wave of hesitance between them, and they fell into nervous silence. It was Harry's face, half obscured by shadows, this face that had once been so close to his, that had asked him to dance - 'You're so terribly uptight, Malfoy' - that drove Draco, as if by some irrepressible instinct, to speak up. 

'Sorry excuses for Gryffindors you are. I'll go.' 

All their eyes widened simultaneously. 

'Are you fucking with us?' asked Ron. 

'Merlin, just give me the keys,' he took them from Seamus's hand, then stared at the golden glass bottle. 'What's in it?' 

Ron stared at it, was about to answer, but Draco realized he didn't much care. 'Give me it,' he said, and, with bottle and keys in hand, resisting the urge to look at Potter, to make sure _he_ was looking, seeing how _not_ uptight he was, he turned on his heels and marched down the corridor, a chorus of murmured 'good lucks' blurring with his footsteps. 

Snape's old storage room was around the corner, easy to spot between the luxurious tapestries. Draco stood in front of it, staring at the dark wood of the door pensively, and tipped the bottle against his lips. He recognized the taste immediately - it was the American liquor Harry had ordered for them, the one that had been burning in his throat while he watched Harry leave him for the dancefloor. 

This was a terrible idea. An awful, awful impulse driven by the most archaic urge to show how brave he was. Draco was appalled at himself, in that personal way one's appalled without quite doing anything about it. The truth was he'd carry on with this little pathetic display, since in that part - half, really - of his brain where thought and emotion were reserved exclusively to Harry Potter, it all made a perfect deal of sense. Harry would see him neatly blended with his friends, _helping_ them in their strange endeavours, reigning the dark, eery halls with them, and Harry would know he wasn't frigid, cold, detached, and that glimmer of hope he'd felt that night would return. 

He casted a few simple spells to detect hexes, the type of things they’d been taught in class and, therefore, that Draco knew would never help him detect a hex by a professor. Then, he attempted a few of the tricks his father had taught him, dark spells the Death Eaters had perfected, that the professors were surely not expecting the students to know. Not one of those spells, simple or not, detected a hex, curse or semblance of an incantation on the door or beyond it. An ordinary storage room.

After he forced himself to drink a bit more of the wretched liquid, he turned the keys on the small lock. It opened with a smooth click, a straightforward swing of the door inwards. The space was small, cramped, lined with shelves from floor to ceiling. The smell, likely nauseating to some, of conserves and dust and old brews, felt comforting to Draco. 

He closed the door behind him and went about finding the vials of veritaserum. Supposedly, they’d be like water, unobtrusive between the exuberantly coloured potions and various jars of ingredients. It was taking a while, and Draco found himself taking worried sips out of the bottle - he couldn’t bear going back empty-handed, not after he’d made such a big show out of going in there. 

He was frustratedly pushing out of the way a bunch of pink, swirling vials, when there was a knock on the door, and a creak as it opened. 

‘You sure are taking your time, Malfoy,’ came Harry’s voice - and the door closed, and Draco turned to see them both cramped in the narrow space, the dim lightbulb flickering above them. 

‘I’m being _careful_. I know you’re unfamiliar with the concept,’ Draco retorted, forcing himself to turn away from Potter and focus on the crammed shelves once more. He was actually being regretfully reckless - he’d drunk too much lobe-blaster in a fit of nerves, and he kept misplacing the jars ever so slightly, too blurry-minded to remember their precise position. 

‘Move.’ 

‘Excuse me?’ 

_‘Move,_ Malfoy, I think I know where it is,’ Harry urged. Draco flattened against one of the walls with his eyebrows raised, and watched as Harry fiddled with the wooden ladder before climbing up to peer at the higher shelves. He was short; he had to climb quite high, his feet sliding restless on the rung, and Draco had half a mind to steady him with a hand on his calf, but he couldn’t bring himself to close the distance. 

‘Here,’ Harry leaned down; there were vials in his hands, ‘Take these, come on.’ 

‘Do you know everything in this bloody castle?’ Draco huffed as he collected them. Figures he wouldn’t be able to prove himself to Potter. Now he just looked like a useless fool. 

Harry came down with two more vials between his fingers, climbing down the ladder with only one hand and hurried feet. His expression, when he was finally back at floor level, was clearly pleased. 

‘Snape showed me where it was, in fourth grade. Can’t believe Slughorn didn’t change a thing.’ 

‘I don’t think Slughorn considers it his to change,’ Draco shrugged. Severus Snape was still present somehow, an aura that lingered within the stone walls. That storage room still felt his, as did his seat at the professors’ table, the Potions classroom and the Slytherin house. 

With that thought in mind, Draco dangled the bottle of lobe-blaster in his hand, and asked:

‘Potter, did you and your friends ever break into the Slytherin commons?’ 

Harry was counting the vials of veritaserum. His eyes flittered to Draco only for a second before returning to the shelf, but Draco could see him smile to himself.

‘Don’t be daft. No one’s broken into the Slytherin dungeon in seven centuries.’ 

And he sounded convincing, because Potter was the only bloody member of that group that could actually lie, but both him and Ron had spoken earlier about the common room _changing_ , which certainly implied that they’d seen it at _som_ e point.

‘Say that again.’ 

‘What?’ Potter was distracted, opening each vial and whiffing the insides to make sure it was indeed veritaserum. Draco found it preposterously unfair that Harry didn’t have to look at him, while he was cursed with the view of his pale, toned arms. 

‘Say that again,’ Draco tapped one of the vials, ‘But drink this first.’ 

At least that granted him Harry’s full attention. 

‘You’re bloody mad.’ 

‘Got something to hide, Potter?’ 

‘We’re stealing these for the game Friday, remember?’ 

Draco smirked. It was rare to see Harry back away from a challenge. 

‘They don’t know how many vials were here. Why don’t we play a little game ourselves?’ 

And he was curious, he was, because surely someone would have found out if Harry and Ron and who knows how many more pesky Gryffindors had sneaked into the Slytherin commons, but that was only part of why he was so insistent - it was appealing, in some impulsive, decadent way, to prolong this moment with Potter. To stay there with him, in the cramped, ill-lit storage room, where they could only be as far as a few inches. 

Harry, who had seemed to be weighing his choices, ended up tilting his chin up in that daring way that was so characteristic of him - that Draco had seen countlessly, with soft eyes, from across the room, for years. 

‘If it’s a game, then you should take it too.’ 

His eyes glistened so enticingly, and his tongue was flicking out to lick his lips in nervous excitement, and it seemed, the idea of the game, in the complicit privacy of the dim storage room, unexplainably _thrilling_ \- but Draco knew, deep down, in some fragment of thought where the alcohol hadn’t yet reached, that he couldn’t say yes, since his biggest secret, the one he’d been harbouring for years, that he planned to nurse in his grave, was precisely about Harry, and this game, with the questions worded by his voice, could only serve to bring about the honesty Draco had avoided since he’d met him.

‘Come on, Malfoy, what do you say? Brave enough to steal it, but not to drink it?’ Harry drawled, and it was that tone, so reminiscent - fucking identical - to the one with which he’d called Draco _uptight_ , that managed to destroy all his careful logic. 

‘You wish, Potter. Come on, quit stalling, drink it already.’ 

He was doomed. This was - by far, by fucking miles - the worst idea he’d ever had.

But how could he have said no, when saying yes made Harry smile that mischievous smile of his, all danger and excitement? 

They only took a small sip each. It was remarkably flat in flavour and, after it had vanished down his throat, it made him feel no different. 

He leaned against the shelves, looked at Harry smugly, and asked: 

‘Has no one broken into the Slytherin common room in seven centuries?’ 

Harry’s grin was wide. He didn’t even seem like he was trying to hold back the truth. 

‘No. Ron and I did, in second year.’ 

Draco snorted. It almost hurt his pride, in that ridiculously blind loyalty one has to their House, that, after so much talk of safety and discretion, the Slytherin dungeon had been broken into by a couple of kids.

‘How did you manage that?’ 

Potter scratched the back of his neck, and the smile he drew was delightfully embarrassed. 

‘Polyjuice potion.’ 

Draco laughed, though there was something wistful in it. In second year, he’d been a snotty brat trying to please his father, weaving stories about the heir of Slytherin to the most impressionable of his schoolmates. Potter, on the other hand, had been just like he was now: ridiculously brave and preposterously reckless. 

‘Oh no, I want to know the full story. You’re bloody shit at potions, Potter, there’s no way you brewed polyjuice in second year,’ he said, trying to pass the fondness in his tone for mockery. 

Harry shook his head, biting away a smile. ‘It’s not that interesting a story. Besides, isn’t it my turn to ask a question?’ 

Draco huffed, and took another sip of his drink. ‘Go ahead, then. But don’t think you’re off the hook.’ 

The light flickered again. For one moment, they were plunged in darkness, and the situation felt to Draco then, somehow, much less innocent than before. He couldn’t help picture the most stereotypical activities that were bound to occur between two students in a cramped closet at night; picture himself crowding Harry against the shelves, kissing him, running his fingers through the bare skin of his arms and the dark strands of his hair. Making him moan, because he’d been imaging that sound ever since Pansy, in third year, in a chilly night by the common room’s fireplace, had filled him in on all the graphic details of sex. 

When the light returned, he was certain there was a newfound flush on his pale skin. 

‘Alright, I got one,’ Harry’s voice cut through his thoughts, ‘When we drank those shots, the other night, it was too much for you, wasn’t it?’ 

Draco rolled his eyes. There it was, the first effect of the veritaserum running see-through in his bloodstream: when he tried for a pitiful ‘No’, his tongue was tied, a spasm of muscle that kept his mouth shut. He laughed, something wry and resigned. 

‘It’s not my fucking fault. This stuff you’re drinking is pure alcohol, Potter,’ he waved the bottle around as if it’d offended him. Harry was looking dreadfully smug. ‘Was I in the common room when you and Ron broke in?’ 

Harry twisted his lips in what Draco assumed was an attempt to lie, smugness quickly leaving his expression. He sighed, shaking his head with a hint of amusement.

‘You were.’ 

‘Oh, Merlin, you did something to me, didn’t you? Did you hex me, Potter?’ he asked, because there was something shameful in Harry’s eyes, something that told him there was _much_ more to that story. 

‘No, we didn’t hex you,’ Harry snorted, ‘Why the fuck would we do that?’ 

‘Because you hated me,’ Draco shrugged. He took another sip of the blasted drink as an excuse to look away from him. 

‘Well,’ there was a pause, and then Harry was gingerly taking the bottle from his hand and bringing it to his own lips. When Draco dared to look back at him, his eyes were dark green under the weak light, his lips shiny from the golden drink. ‘Yes. You hated me too, didn't you?’ 

Draco managed nothing more than a bitter laugh - and he didn’t look away from Potter, took it as a point of pride not to, because it might have been a terrible idea to go along with this game, but that didn’t mean he had to totally lose his dignity. 

‘No. I never hated you,’ he murmured. Then, taking a breath, ‘Do you hate me still?’ 

‘No. Not anymore,’ Harry said - and he’d said it under veritaserum, he _meant_ it, and his gaze was soft, determined, like he had no problem revealing it, like it was just another dumb truth, like Draco hadn’t been thinking of asking that question for _years_.

Harry didn’t hate him. 

It didn’t even mean much, it meant nothing - maybe Harry was _indifferent_ to him now, and that would be even worse - but it still brought about the most ridiculous urges, like Harry had said he liked him, like he’d been allowed permission to lace an arm around Harry’s shoulders and cover the prickly skin of his upper arms, so he could warm him not with his coat but with his own skin. 

He shook that picture from his mind - though it was difficult, seeing the delectable wavering of Harry’s Adam’s apple as he drank.

‘I suppose it’s your turn.’ 

Harry regarded him for a slow moment. 

'Why’d you volunteer to steal this? You know it was a bloody awful plan.’

His smile was slow and curious; he probably expected some mildly amusing truth, something quick to move on from. Draco wanted to provide him that. Wanted to make him laugh with something innocently awkward. But he thought about it, looked back at the moment they were all gathered in the Tapestry Corridor, and there’d been only one reason he’d gone, one reason that made him the one who’d spoken first, broken the circle and volunteered. He hadn’t wanted to do it - it was, like Harry had said, a fucking _awful_ plan. He hadn’t been curious, he hadn’t wanted the veritaserum for anything. If Harry wasn’t there, he wouldn’t have done it. He would have stayed behind, most likely with the ever-trembling Neville, and watched from afar. He was never this reckless, this impulsive, this bloody _stupid_ unless Harry Potter was concerned.

‘To show you that I wasn’t uptight.’ 

He was surprised by Harry’s laugh. 

‘Well, you didn’t quite manage that. Showed me you’re daft, though.’

Draco glared. ‘You’re a bloody tosser, Potter,’ he said, prying the bottle off Harry’s fingers and forcing himself to take a big gulp. By this point, he was hoping he wouldn’t remember this night at all when he woke up the next morning.

‘Guess now I know you really do mean it when you say that,’ Harry snorted. He seemed more amused than insulted, and it made Draco smile. ‘I have another question.’ 

Draco raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, get on with it.’

‘Why did you help pay for the treacle tarts, the other night?’

Draco laughed; a surprised, quickly dying sound. He had no idea what to say. There was no _answer_ for that, was there? 

He could end the game there. Return to the dungeons, where it was cold and dark and safe. . Harry would judge him for refusing to answer, but he wouldn’t exactly be surprised: hadn’t it been well established that Draco was uptight? He could be the first wizard to lie under the influence of veritaserum. The only ways he’d keep his secret, his pet burden, just like he had for years. That was it. 

He did think about it, leaving, for a while. But he was drunk, and the small, dark room seemed so conducive to sharing secrets, and this night, after all, had all started because he wanted to be brave. 

And he could be. For Harry fucking Potter, he could be brave. 

‘I think it’s my turn, actually.’ 

Harry quirked a brow impatiently. ‘What do you want to ask, then?’ 

‘Why do you _think_ I did it?’ 

One of the shelves shook as Harry shrugged. It was half-hearted, Draco could see.

‘You were drunk.’

Draco’s smile was rueful - because no matter how clear Draco made it, how painfully obvious he was, how bloody openly in love he was, Harry would never see, and Draco would never have the courage to say it, and the torture would never end.

‘Really, Potter, that’s all you could come up with?’

Harry didn’t falter at Draco’s unfriendly tone. His teeth were clenched resolutely, and he huffed in frustration. 'Why’d you do it, Malfoy?’ 

‘Because,’ Draco breathed, managed a shrug, forced himself to meet Harry’s eyes. ‘You wanted them. And I wanted to make you smile.’ 

And it felt like a confession, weighed in the air like one, scarred his conscience like one, and he suddenly thought that he’d said too much - because he’d never said _anything_ before -, and there was a bubbling of panic and fear just an inch from the surface, and he couldn’t bear Harry’s expression as his eyes widened in surprise, so he broke the spell at last, stepped back towards the door and gestured vaguely at the vials with his gaze stubborn on the floor.

‘I trust you can carry those yourself, Potter.’

He was off before Harry could even say a word. 

The Tapestry corridor was dark; in the paintings, the oil silhouettes were deep asleep. 

‘Oy, mate, why’d it take you so bloody long?’ Ron said in a sorry excuse of a murmur once Draco had reached the circle of boys. Draco didn’t answer, didn’t even deem them a glance. Pace brisk, he ignored them, and went down to the comfort of the dungeons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	5. Interlude in the Greenhouse

‘It was fucking daft to agree to it in the first place,’ Pansy told him the next morning. They were by the lake again, surrounded in thick, grey fog. 

‘I’m aware.’ 

‘Not that it’s the end of the world.’ 

‘Are you quite sure?’ 

Pansy swatted his arm. ‘You, my dear, are awfully dramatic. We’ve survived the Dark Lord, one would think we’ll survive Harry Potter as well. Come now, before breakfast ends. You’ve been out here too long.’ 

Second class was Potions, and they spent half an hour tittering in the cold classroom while Professor Slughorn gave them a lengthy speech - one, in fact, that he made a point of reciting to every year that day. 

‘I would have thought - if it was in fact one of you, of course - that you knew breaking into classrooms is strictly forbidden. And to leave this… this… blatant proof, is what it is, that the school’s conduct has been disrespected is beyond disgraceful. Disappointed, I tell you! Beyond disappointed, I am. Alas, the only reason I will not choose to investigate further is that nothing has been stolen. In fact,’ he brandished the dusty helmet in his hand again, ‘The mysterious trespasser has only added to what was here before,' he shook his head, floundered around the room, 'By Merlin's beard, in my days, thieves used to _steal_. Not whatever this nonsense is.'

The students stifled their laughs in the crooks of their elbows and the backs of their hands. Pansy, always one for subtlety, kicked him under the table, then smiled sweetly when he faced her with a glare. 

It was when Slughorn's speech had trailed off, and they'd begun their assignments, which had been left to ferment since last night, under the professor's lost, scattered words, that Ron sauntered up to him, incredible dark marks under his eyes, skin disturbingly pasty. Terribly hungover, in fact, and Draco couldn't find the smallest shred of sympathy for him. 

'Malfoy,' he said, and he seemed pained to hear his own voice. Draco lifted his eyes from his brew. 'Listen, mate, Harry didn't tell us why you ran off, but, hum, we just wanted to say… all of us, but no one else could get out of bed… thanks, is what I mean. Thanks. Aye?' 

After a moment, through which the ginger stood staring at him like it physically wounded him to keep his head high, Draco nodded. 

'Sure, Weasley. You're welcome.' 

Ron smiled in pure relief, then promptly dragged himself back to a corner, laying his head over his arms on one of the desks. He stayed like that for the rest of the class. 

That exchange, measly as it had been, was the sole contact Draco had with Harry's group for over a week. At first, Pansy had been certain he'd be invited to the ridiculous game they'd planned, given that he'd helped steal the damn vials. But Friday came and Friday passed - Draco saw, through the window of one of the corridors, Harry's group walking along the snow, huddled in heavy coats, no doubt headed to Hogsmeade. 

Draco went up to the library and perfected his Transfiguration essay until he fell asleep on top of the parchment. 

He would have liked to say that he wasn’t miserable, but after Friday a weekend went by, one where it had snowed for hours on end, and his plans to buy some more ink at Hogsmeade with Pike and Blaise fell through, and he found himself in his room, under grey light, looking down at himself, clad in black and pale-handed, and felt a barely resistible urge to cry, then an irresistible urge for violence, and he punched one of the wooden posts from his canopy bed. Afterwards, late on Monday, he’d just gotten to the alcove in the Astronomy Tower, hoping to catch the sunset, when he peeked through the window and saw the zooming of broomsticks, and just the _thought_ that it might be Potter became intolerable, and he stalked off before the sun had gone under the snowy mounds. 

Tuesday dawned with tepid rain, and Hermione Granger followed him through an entire corridor in the morning, before he’d even summoned the courage to show up for breakfast, and it was too early, and it hurt too much, and he turned so suddenly that she almost hit him. 

‘Fancy a chat, Granger?’ 

‘I- Yes, as a matter of fact.’ 

Draco bristled - and even her eyes, calm and resolute as they were, inspired in him no sympathy. He turned and kept walking. Hermione strode until she was beside him. 

‘Get on with it, then.’ 

‘You see, it’s that- Oh, bloody hell, Malfoy, will you stop? The thing is, Ron and Harry, the idiots they are, only told me Friday, you see? Of course they would’ve, they have no tact, the lot of them. You were welcome to come, of course, you _had_ to come, after helping. But I didn’t know, and the idiots were too useless to ask.’ 

Draco clenched his teeth. He supposed the words were meant as a friendly gesture, but they only brought him a sour anger. They went under an archway, crossed a corner, caught one of the moving staircases as it was sliding along the ledge. Most students were at the Great Hall eating right about then; Draco wondered if Hermione had sneaked out just to find him. 

‘Is that all?’ 

‘Malfoy. _Draco_.’ 

It made him look, even unwittingly. Hermione’s arms were crossed, drowned in her black robes, her eyebrow raised. She seemed fierce in her friendliness now. 

‘It’s not all. Thank you for helping them. Who knows what the bloody fools would have done.’ 

Draco shrugged. He hadn’t helped in anything, really. At best he’d saved some uncoordinated lump of limbs like Finnigan from getting into the storage room. 

‘Perhaps if you had been there, I wouldn’t have had to.’ 

‘I’m not their mother, Malfoy,’ Hermione hissed.

‘Are you not? It certainly seems like it.’ 

Hermione froze. Draco, who before would have kept walking, grateful to be alone once more, turned to regard her now. The anger that had been growing inside him was finally loose, and he wanted to see the hurt on her face. 

‘You know what, Malfoy?’ she looked awfully cold, ‘I tried. Remember that.’ 

And she was off through one of the stone archways, no doubt heading to the Great Hall to tell her friends what a beast Draco - _Malfoy_ \- was. 

He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that. He went to the Charms classroom and sat next to the locked door, waiting for class to start. 

After Charms he had a free hour. The rain was loud against his umbrella as he hurried down through the slippery paths to the greenhouses. By the pots of Mandragoras that were growing for the second years, Draco unearthed a book from his bag and settled down to read. Even through the glass he could feel the gusts of wind against his back; could hear the drops heavy on the tilted roof, the frequent rustling of tree branches on the panels. 

He was on the second chapter of the Guide to Advanced Occlumency when Harry found him. 

‘What the fuck, Malfoy?’ 

Draco really wished he’d never been with Harry those two nights - now that he’d heard his voice soft and happy, it hurt much more to hear him angry. 

‘Your group really has it in for me today, doesn’t it?’ 

‘ _We_ have it in for you? Hermione was apologizing,’ Harry shouted. Draco glanced up from the page at last: the other boy was soaked from head to toe, hair plastered to his forehead. It seemed blacker from the rain. His glasses were dripping, and his wet robes were pooling at his feet, hanging heavy from his arms. 

‘She was, wasn’t she? Funny, seeing as she wasn’t even there that night.’ 

Harry swept the hair out of his forehead. When he laughed, it was a frustrated, disbelieving thing. Draco didn’t like it at all. ‘Is that what this is, then? You’ve got your feelings hurt, Malfoy?’ 

And it was so easy to revert to his old self - Harry pushed the way he’d always pushed, with fervour and unsuppressed emotion, eyes simmering and cheeks red, and Draco, in turn, pushed like he’d grown used to - with ice, with lies.

‘Seems to me the only one hurt here is Granger. And now you’re here instead of her. You truly should stop filling in for each other.’ 

Harry huffed. He stepped closer to the mandragoras. ‘I didn’t apologize because I didn’t think I had to. It was one soddy night, and you’re never at Hogsmeade anyway, I didn’t think you’d want to go. I didn’t think you’d _care_.’ 

‘I don’t.’ 

‘Of course not. Why’d you lash out at Hermione, then?’ 

‘Because I don’t _like_ her,’ Draco closed the book with a snap, ‘Have I not been clear enough all these years?’ 

A tree branch hit the side of the greenhouse. The glass panels shook from the rain; Harry, in anger, shook as well. 

‘You’re an arse, Malfoy.’ 

‘You’ve always known that, Potter.’ 

Because he did, and Draco _was_ , and Draco could never bring himself to change, and it was so much simpler to be rude and watch Harry leave than to be nice and see it all the same. 

But Harry didn’t leave. Though his fists were clenched, and he was glancing out the greenhouse door every so often, and he was surely so uncomfortable in his wet clothes - and Draco, in a surge of weakness, wanted to take them _off_ him -, he didn’t leave, only moved closer, toed the pots of the small mandragoras with the tip of his soaked shoe and sighed something impatient and disappointed. 

‘I don’t bloody get you. You say things, like - like what you said in the storage room - like you want to be _friends_ , and then you pull shit like this.’ 

Draco had thought he’d been very clear about wanting to be _more_ than friends, but, then again, Harry was never fully paying attention. 

‘Forget what I said,’ he said, a dismissive sweep of his hand in the air, like the words had meant nothing, like they hadn’t been making him miserable for over a week. Because he didn’t know what he was arguing for, or why he was mad - if it was because he’d been that honest with Harry, because Harry hadn’t heard his confession and immediately kissed him; because Harry had heard it and not even realized what he meant; because Harry had heard it in the first place; because he’d heard it and not even _invited_ Draco, even if only for politeness’s sake - he didn’t know, but it all seemed to start with those _words_ , and maybe, if Harry forgot them, if Draco did too, he could return to some semblance of normal.

Harry rolled his eyes. He wasn’t shouting anymore, however. More a tone of exasperation. Like Draco was an _inconvenience_. ‘You said it under veritaserum.’ 

Draco quirked an eyebrow. ‘You said you didn’t hate me under veritaserum, so what is this?’ 

‘Don’t be a child, Malfoy, I can be mad at you even if I don’t hate you.’ 

‘Perhaps you should go back to hating me, then,’ Draco sniped back, and it didn’t even feel like he was trying to hurt Harry - he was hurting _himself_. 

‘Yeah, you’re making that very easy right now,’ Harry huffed dryly. Draco figured he deserved it. ‘Do you want me to hate you?’ 

Draco sighed. It occurred to him that they’d had this entire fight while Draco was still sat between the pots of mandragoras, the rain whipping the glass behind his back while Harry glared down at him, and just like that every pretension of anger vanished inside him, and he felt only like a petulant child, throwing a fit over absolutely nothing, and he stared at his own knees. 

‘No.’ 

‘Will you apologize to Hermione?’ 

‘I suppose so.’ 

‘Good,’ Harry nodded, ‘Now, if you hadn’t decided to be a complete prat and you’d let Hermione speak, you’d have known she wanted to invite you to a party this Friday, at the Three Broomsticks.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Harry drew an amused smile. Around him, a puddle had begun to form. ‘Think you can make it?’

Draco thrummed his bony fingers over the cover of his book. This was the first time he was _invited_ \- not a merging of two groups nor a coincidental meeting, but an actual _plan_. 

Idly, he nodded. He wasn’t sure if he was happy or terrified. 

Harry slapped his hands together. It made a wet sound. ‘Alright, then, I’ll be off. You should know, Malfoy, that you spend your free time in wretched places.’ 

Draco laughed, though it came out small and soft under the sound of the rain. As Harry was walking towards the door, he stood in a jump and called out. 

‘Potter, wait a moment!’ 

Harry looked at him quizzically. Draco, though he was doing a little run to try and catch up with him, feet loud as he crossed the puddle on the floor, tried to look somewhat composed. 

‘You’re a bloody fool, you know that?’ he said, stretching his hand to present him his umbrella.

Harry’s eyes went wide. ‘How will you get out?’ 

‘The rain will have to stop eventually,’ Draco shrugged. It most likely wouldn’t.

Harry took the umbrella, spun the handle in his palm, then smiled that crooked, mischievous smile of his. ‘Thanks, Malfoy. Oh, I forgot - the party, if you go - it’s a House party. You have to bring something to show what House you’re in. Not your tie or something, though, that’s no fun.’ 

Draco frowned. ‘What will you do?

Harry flashed him a smirk. ‘You’ll see, if you bother to show up.’

He left with a twirl of his wet robes, umbrella unfolding over his head. As Draco watched him go further and further into the rain, he seemed to blur in the softest watercolours, until he was nothing but a blot of grey and black. 

Hours later, long after the sun had set, once the castle was dark and deserted, Draco left the library and retired to the dungeons for the night. Against the smooth stone wall, right where the secret entrance to the common room laid, rested a black umbrella.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	6. The House Party I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, this fic is just me exploring the crazy night life Hogsmeade could have had. 
> 
> Enjoy~

Offensive bright lights were reflected on the wet cobblestone in front of the Three Broomsticks. They faded and blended and changed from hues of green, to red, to yellow, to blue. It was dreadfully on the nose and ridiculously childish, as Draco knew it would be, and there were yells already audible from the street, and everyone would undoubtedly be drunk and _cramped_ into the place, and the music unbearably loud, and Draco really ought to just go back to the dorms and join Pansy, who’d told him House parties were wretched and promptly refused to attend.

He didn’t leave. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair and approached the door of the pub.

There was a slim man there, the type of man that fades into walls, that passes unnoticed wherever he goes, and this same man was quick to bar the door when Draco moved to open it. 

‘Your House?’ the man said. His ratty moustache obscured his upper lip. 

‘Slytherin,’ Draco answered. Honestly, one ought to think the Malfoy legacy would at least save him from silly questions like that. 

The man, unimpressed, narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you not know the rules of the party, boy? Don’t tell me. Show me.’ 

It honestly was the most preposterous concept for a party that Draco had ever heard of and, if only Potter wasn’t on the other side of that door, Draco would never be standing on this side of it.

He shrugged off his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his charcoal shirt. In each forearm, writhing and coiling languorously around the pale skin, was a snake, magicked in black lines, two bifurcated tongues hissing over the blue veins on his wrists. After days of obsessing over it, it had been the best he could do, refusing to be as flamboyant as he’d heard many people were - some jokesters, he’d been told, charmed their hairs the colours of their Houses - but also dreading being labelled by Potter as unimaginative. 

‘Keep the sleeves rolled up at all times. Name,’ the man said. Draco answered, and with a flick of the man’s wand the door opened and his coat flew in, rolled tightly into a ball. ‘Find me, say your name, I’ll give you your coat back at the end of night. Have fun, don’t break the glasses.’ 

Inside, the lights were even brighter. He’d also been right when he’d assumed the place would be full - there was barely an inch free to navigate. The music was a wordless beat, jarring in his ears, and he had half a mind to buy a shot - or three - before he went searching for Harry’s group, so he could seem at least somewhat relaxed - he'd have a fit if anyone called him fucking uptight again - but the bar was too crowded, and he doubted he could squeeze in. Idly scratching his forearm, fingers grazing over the thin lines of the snake, he went about cutting through the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of Potter. 

He didn’t see him, but his eyes landed on a wide booth tucked against the far wall, all dark leather, where two damning red heads were. He strode that way. 

Luna was the first to see him when he neared the table. Her hair was tightly wound against the back of her neck, a ghostly raven sinking little claws into the shoulder of her dress, nipping at her ear. 

‘Draco! You came.’ 

Everyone’s eyes flickered up to him. He pointedly ignored Hermione’s - he had yet to apologize to her - and stepped even closer to the scratched-up table. There was a gathering of cups at the center of it already.

‘Lovely bird.’ 

Luna flashed him a smile. Ron, who was at the edge of the seats, began hushering everyone with wide gestures over the table: 

‘Squeeze in, guys, come on. Here, take a seat, mate.’ 

There was a rearranging of room as they slid through the leathers, shoving each other with wild elbows and complaining half-heartedly. Draco took a seat at the newly formed space at the corner of the couch. His left side was entirely pressed to Ron’s. He was awfully uncomfortable, and Potter _wasn't_ there. 

Ron dragged his drink across the table his way. Even though they were so close, he had to talk quite loudly for Draco to hear. ‘Here, drink up.’ 

It was ordinary Wizard’s brew and it sunk warmly in his throat. He watched Ron out the corner of his eye, half expecting to see some miniature lion or some kind of ethereal mane around him. There was nothing. 

‘You look awfully normal.’ 

Ron flashed him a proud smirk. ‘They always let me in, ‘cause of the hair.’ 

Alicia, who was sitting on Ron’s other side, a flurry of red and golden ribbons entwined in her hair, huffed a laugh. ‘It’s so bright they thought he’d charmed it.’ 

Draco snorted; he took another sip of beer before pushing it back towards Ron. Then, and with his gaze trained on the wooden table, trying to get the words out in some semblance of _casual_ , he asked, ‘Where’s Potter, then?’

‘Hiding in the loo,’ Finnigan shouted. His arm was swung over Hermione, whose gaze was still set on Draco. ‘He’ll never get back out here, I reckon.’ 

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Draco frowned, but Finnigan had already turned away, and the table had been flooded by a wave of chatter that left no room for him. He couldn’t help the surge of disappointment: he’d been looking forward to seeing Harry, even if in a tense, hesitant way. Despite the anxiety there’d been excitement, some flush of colour in his skin whenever he remembered Harry inviting him in the greenhouse; curiosity as to what on earth Harry had done to show his House; a very selfish wish for Potter to notice the ever-shifting tattoos coiling around his arms - after all, he’d said once, that first night, that Draco looked good, that black _suited_ him, so perhaps he’d like the ink snakes, perhaps his gaze would be caught on them, even if only once, just like Draco’s gaze had been caught on him for years.

None of which would happen if Harry never came out of the bloody loo. 

‘Are we getting shots then?’ 

‘Not if the bar is full. Oy, hey, yeah, it’s ten - fuck, twelve, is it? Twelve firewhiskeys, like, in glasses. Drinks, I mean, not shots.’ 

The waitress scurried off, Neville counted them to make sure Finnigan had ordered right - he hadn’t, but Ginny and Hermione would share - and Draco suppressed the urge to fiddle with his hands where they rested in his lap. 

‘Is this your first House Party, Draco?’ Luna asked. She was feeding her ghost raven peanuts. They disappeared somewhere between its beak and the translucent line of its throat. 

‘It is. Can’t say they’re quite my style.’ 

‘You’ll warm up to them, mate,’ Ron assured, then gestured vaguely at the ceiling, ‘Once you get drunk enough to forget the bloody awful lighting.’ 

‘I think it’s nice. Festive,’ offered Fletchley. He’d painted his face like a badger. It hadn’t been the most beneficial choice, in Draco’s opinion - it only served to make one think of how similar he indeed was with the animal. 

‘Bullshit, Justin, not even you could like this lighting.’ 

‘One would think, really, that it would have been fixed by now. I mean, House parties must have been going on for like… for like… Granger, oy!, Hermione, when’d they start?’ 

‘I don’t know _everything_ , Dean.’ 

‘You told me it on the train, love!’ Ron exclaimed. Hermione glared, Finnigan jostled her with his arm, and Ron shook against Draco’s side with silent laughter. 

‘I told you I wasn’t _sure_. But I believe they started in 1800.’ 

‘What did?’ 

It was Potter’s voice, and Draco whipped his head to the right, and there Harry was, in black jeans and a white shirt, black hair spiked up in a haphazard way, and _glitter_ around his eyes, red, yellow, orange, golden - thick on his eyelids, quirking towards his temples, Phoenix wings like fire on his pale skin, neon bright and hypnotizing and _beautiful_.

‘Managed to fix your makeup, did you, mate?’ sniggered Sue.

‘Fuck off, it’s bloody hard. Merlin, Malfoy, give me some space, will you?’ 

And Draco was immediately moving, squeezing Ron quite violently to the side, making him huff a surprised groan. They were all incredibly compressed now, arms resting on the table to take as little space as possible, and Draco didn’t care in the slightest, because that was Potter’s side so warm against his, that was Potter’s knee digging into his thigh as he fiddled in the seat, those were Potter’s hands an inch away from his own on the table. 

‘D’you get me a drink, Ron?’ 

‘Finnigan did. Should be here any minute.’ 

Harry smiled; Draco was having an extraordinarily difficult time looking away from his eyes. 

It revealed itself a particularly awkward situation, sitting next to Potter. The drinks soon came, and everyone was drinking their firewhiskey with giddy smiles, and talking in crossed conversations, and Harry - of course, because that was his element, those were his friends - was very fine with _not_ speaking to Draco. At all. And it wasn’t like Draco was entirely shut out: there were other conversations, with Neville for example, whose irises were glistening an eerie red and gold, or those fools Thomas and Finnigan, who had both charmed their skin half of each Gryffindor colour, or Luna, whom he genuinely liked. But every conversation where Harry was involved seemed to swim away from him. He’d take a sip of his drink for courage, intervene with something small and attentive, and Harry wouldn’t quite look at him, nor draw those smiles, and he’d find himself feeling rejected for no explicit reason. He could still feel his warmth and hear him talk and feel his body shake against his with laughter, but he felt distant nonetheless.

Draco remembered those nights he’d spent loitering around Hogsmeade, wandering the streets and spying on this same group, and picturing he was there, next to Harry, an arm around him, or their fingers entwined, or simply the understanding that they were _more_ , a permission to give him soft looks and whisper him sweet words. 

He was stuck midway now. And he promised himself he wouldn’t mind - it was still _something_ \- but it _hurt_. 

‘Are you done with your drink, Fletchley? No? Good. No one’s done? Alright, mates, we’re playing, come on, I want to play.’ 

There was a chorus of half-hearted complaints directed at Seamus, who was smiling unapologetically. Draco, figuring this was as good a chance as any to try and chat to Harry properly, leaned an inch towards him:

‘Playing?’ 

Harry just quirked an eyebrow. Draco was drawn to the red shimmer over his eyes again. ‘Familiar with the concept?

He turned his face and resumed his conversation with Hermione. Draco tensed his lips. He’d thought they’d ended their conversation at the greenhouse on a good note. 

‘Alright,’ Alicia slapped her hands on the table, drawing everyone’s attention, ‘Never have I ever, you all know the rules. Malfoy, you know it, right?’ 

‘Of course,’ he nodded. He knew it, because he’d been thirteen at some point. Still, he figured it might be somewhat entertaining when mixed with alcohol. 

‘I’m first,’ Dean Thomas raised his hand excitedly, ‘Fletchley, mate, if you catch the waiter ask him for shots, aye? Three each I’d say. For the tough ones, you see?’ his smile was devious, and the table laughed, ‘Okay, then: never have I ever… been so drunk I blacked out.’ 

There was a rising of voices, a few accusations, and in the end Ron, Harry, Finnigan and Sue drank. 

‘Really, Potter?’ he said, aiming for amused. Harry actually had the nerve of pretending he hadn’t heard him. It made something panicked and fearful twist inside Draco. 

‘Can I go next?’ it was Neville asking, and Ginny bumped him on the side encouragingly. ‘Never have I ever given a blowjob.’ 

‘Bloody hell, Neville,’ Ron’s tone was a mix of impressed and mortified. Seamus and Dean looked at each other, dissolved into a fit of laughter and drank. Hermione, Sue and Draco - who was trying to suppress that very awkward time in the dorms with Blaise, for the sorry sake of experimentation and forgetting a certain bespectacled twat - also took a valiant gulp of their firewhiskey. 

Draco could feel Harry’s eyes tracking his hand as he unashamedly picked up his drink, and he smirked against the brim of his glass. Let him wonder who Draco had done that for; let him know Draco was up for that, because he bloody was, because he’d noticed Harry hadn’t drunk and it’d risen in him a surge of curiosity and hunger. Fuck, he wanted to be Harry’s first, Harry’s _only_. 

The shots came. They were a fluorescent green. 

‘Who’s next?’ Alicia asked, ‘Hermione, want to go?’ 

‘Sure,’ Granger’s eyes were narrowed in the same way they’d been when she’d followed Draco across that hall. ‘Never have I ever thrown a bloody helmet into a classroom while drunk.’ 

The table shook with laughter, and Weasley coloured from head to toe. 

‘You’re a cruel woman,’ he said, though his eyes were unwittingly fond, and he took two big sips of the crimson alcohol. 

‘You kinda had it coming,’ Ginny remarked, at the same time as Harry uttered an amused ‘It was bloody daft, mate.’ 

‘Well, it ought to be my turn now. Bet I can make all you tossers drink,’ Ron retorted. 

‘Oh yeah? Go on, then.’ 

Draco, whose face was inches away from Ron’s - and Harry’s too, but he was primly ignoring that, lest he have some sort of fit - could see the ginger smirk something wicked. 

‘Never have I ever been scarred in combat.’ 

The voices of indignation were instantaneous. Draco himself thought it funny, in some dark, sharp-shooted way, but then he felt Harry’s arm tense against his, just for a second before it melted into soft warmth once more, and Draco was shaken with the wish to both slap the back of Ron’s head and offer Harry some gesture of comfort. 

‘Oh, sod off, Weasley,’ Alicia exclaimed, punching his arm. 

Ron’s smile was smug. ‘I fucking told you. Come on, drink up, mates. No way that someone survived the war without at least a scar.’ 

Predictably, everyone drank - even Weasley, who seemed to take it in stride. And Draco looked at this group, half-heartedly irked, stifling their laughter against the edges of their glasses, and was perplexed at the relative lightness of the situation. Here they were, surrounded by brightness and screaming and life, speaking of the war so casually, simple strategy for a drinking game. 

‘You have a scar, Neville?’ 

Neville nodded. His eyes really were frightening, charmed red like that. ‘In my calf, almost from knee to ankle. It’s nasty.’ 

‘Merlin, Neville,’ Dean Thomas’s eyes were almost perfectly circular in surprise. ‘Well, worst scar, worst consequence. Have a shot, mate.’ 

Neville let out a self-conscious laughter, curls of hair falling over one of his eerie red eyes, and Ginny and Fletchley were urging him on while he fiddled with the little shot glass, and it wasn’t that Neville seemed uncomfortable but he didn’t seem unquestionably up for it either, so Draco sighed and spoke over the chatter: 

‘I’m not certain if it counts as a scar, but I still have the Dark Mark.’ 

Their voices quieted down. He pointedly met their stares, for he’d never been one to show embarrassment, then glanced at Potter, who’d gone somewhat still for once in his fucking life. He wondered if Harry remembered that night in sixth year, in the bathroom - the leaking pipes, the footsteps across the tiles, the scream: _sectumsempra!_ Moved by that thought, and hoping to get some kind of reaction from Harry - maybe his eyes would settle on him for more than five fucking seconds for the first time that night - he added:

‘I also have a scar across my whole chest.’ 

There was a pause, which Draco was fervently hoping didn’t unfold into pity or disgust, and then Finnigan piped up: 

‘I reckon _that_ deserves a shot right there.’ 

‘Fuck yeah,’ Sue nodded, ‘Drink up, Malfoy.’ 

He did. The alcohol was something he’d never tried before, horribly bitter, near acid in his throat, and one pesky tear formed in the corner of his eyes as he slammed the glass down. Beside him, he could feel Harry fidget. 

‘What on earth is this?’ he managed to ask, though his voice was rough, scratching painfully at the back of his throat. 

Ron smirked. He straightened his own three shots into a neat line in front of him. ‘It’s some wretched Muggle thing. Absinthe, I think it’s called.’

The game went on. Draco had been right: it was entertaining, when it had alcohol. Besides, it was surprisingly informative. Everyone except for Fletchley had stolen something from Hogwarts - even Luna, who, as it turned out, swiped ingredients from the kitchens for her own concoctions; every guy in the group, except for Harry and he, had had a sexual fantasy about one of the professors; no girl in the group had _ever_ had a sexual fantasy about one of the professors; Sue and Finnigan were the only ones who’d ever tried anal sex - a round that was particularly difficult to get through, because Harry was _right_ there, and Draco could only think of how beautiful he’d look spread out in his bed. 

Alicia said, ‘Never have I ever been in love’. Hermione and Ron were the first to drink, with saccharine smiles that were frankly sickening. Draco considered not drinking, but it felt like such a blatant lie, such a ridiculous pretense - he’d been in love since he was eleven, after all - that he ended up almost emptying his glass and ignoring the mildly questioning looks he got. There was a beat, Fletchley drank with his eyes trained on the table and his cheeks red, and, lastly, in almost silent agreement, and looking at everyone but each other, Harry and Ginny drank at the same time. 

Draco _hated_ that girl. Hated that she could make Harry look so soft, so downcast. Hated that _she_ , with her ginger hair and resolute eyes and feminine features, had caught his eye; that she was the one Harry looked at, while Draco loitered in the background, begging to be seen; hated that her arms had been around him, that their lips had met; that Harry still probably thought about her, and had her face in his fantasies, while Draco had never thought about anyone else but him, or fallen asleep with anyone else’s name on his lips. 

He looked at Harry, mostly so he’d stop glaring at Ginny, and saw him downing one of his shots - and he knew Potter was, for whatever reason, mad at him, but it was difficult to just ignore him, specially when he was so _close_ , so he tried to strike a conversation again:

‘You know, you have all night to get drunk, Potter.’

‘Sod off, Malfoy.’ 

And Draco couldn’t take it anymore, because he was _trying_ , and each one of Harry’s responses felt like rejection, and it was making something in Draco unbearably sad.

‘Do you plan on telling me exactly why you’re so crossed?’ 

Harry shot him a glare. The lights, which had turned yellow now, made the flaming glitter on his eyelids shine brighter. He looked mesmerizing in his fury. 

‘You don’t know?’ 

‘Do I seem like I know?’

Harry huffed. ‘You didn’t apologize to Hermione. You told me you fucking would, Malfoy. I didn’t even think you were coming tonight.’ 

‘Oh,’ Draco blinked. ‘Potter, I was waiting for the right time.’ 

‘You had _days_ to do it. How bloody hard is it to say ‘sorry’?’ Harry retorted. His lips were pressed into a line, like he was disappointed, and that bloody Muggle drink really was affecting Draco, because he couldn’t even pretend not to care. 

‘It’s not. I’ll do it, Potter, I swear.’ 

Harry lifted a brow; it caused the red and golden glitter to flare brighter. ‘Tonight?’ 

Around them the game went on with shrill laughter and the clinking of glasses. The lights were flashing in a hideous mix of white and blue, colouring everyone’s face, and the music was now something with lyrics, a repetitive string of verses in a husky tone, the type of thing that tingles in drunken minds, and it didn’t seem, the entire environment inside the Three Broomsticks, much conducive to serious, tedious conversations. Draco had never been one to apologize. Not in formal, fanciful words, at least - he would have preferred to make amends with Granger through some form of organic gesture, and the prospect of saying sorry now, in the least appropriate scenario, surrounded by people, was considerably unappealing. 

But Harry was _asking_ , and Draco was hopeless to it. 

Still, he didn’t have to be obvious to it. No good things would come of Harry knowing just how persuasive his pretty green eyes were. 

‘Well, it’s hardly the place for an apology.’ 

‘Oh, come on, Malfoy,’ Harry was entirely unimpressed. Then, his lips quirked into something devious, ‘I thought you did shit for me now. Wasn’t that what you said in the storage room?’

It had truly been a _terrible_ idea to drink veritaserum with Potter. 

‘For Merlin’s sake,' Draco sighed, trying to balance out the flush he felt on his skin, ‘I said I wanted to make you smile - that _one_ time, mind you - not that I’m your house elf.’ 

‘I know,’ Harry said, but he was still smirking, ‘Will you do it or not?’

Just for good measure - and he was really just wasting both his time and Harry’s, because the decision had been made as soon as Harry had asked - he pretended to consider it.

‘Will you stop behaving like an utter twat if I do?’ 

Harry’s smile was victorious. ‘I can try.’ 

Draco glared - but it was pointless to pretend any longer, not when they both knew what his answer would be, so he ended up sighing.

‘You better try hard, Potter.’ 

Harry laughed, his leg jostling Draco’s, firm and hot against him, and Draco thought for the first time that night that perhaps House Parties could be fun after all.

Meanwhile, in the game a new round of firewhiskey had been ordered, and an awfully embarrassing question must have been asked, since half of the table was either blushing or choking on hurried sips of their drink, but Draco really didn’t care what it had been. He turned his attention to Sue, whose bronze-charmed hair and electric blue lipstick easily branded her a Ravenclaw. 

‘Never have I ever lied to a professor.’ 

There was a chorus of grumbles, and Sue was smug as everyone except for Fletchley - how dreadfully boring of him - drank. 

‘Alright, mates, I have a good one,’ Dean Thomas said, and Harry leaned over the table to hear him better. Draco missed the warmth of his arm, and stared in ill-disguised fondness as he toyed with his glass. ‘Never have I ever hid a kink from a partner.’ 

People went beet red again. It was entertaining to watch, and Draco prided himself in not having to drink this round - unless Harry fucking Potter qualified as a fetish, he’d been pretty straightforward with the few partners he’d had. Not having to drink made it easier to take in the people who _did_ : namely, Sue, Alicia, Thomas and _Potter_. 

He felt his mouth go dry. 

‘Didn’t want to share with the little Weasley, did you?’ 

Harry was flushing a delightful shade of pink, and he rolled the sleeves of his white shirt with a frazzled, disbelieving laugh. He took another gulp of the firewhiskey, then said lowly, so only Draco could hear:

‘No, it’s not like that. I don’t even know why I drank.’ 

‘It seems quite simple to me,’ he said, partly to tease, partly because he was _curious_ now, because he’d always had to guess Harry’s preferences in his fantasies, the way he liked things, the spots he liked Draco to kiss and touch, how careful, how rough, what he liked to be called, what he went _loud_ for, and now, because of this ridiculous, _heavenly_ game, he could _ask._ ‘Have a secret kink, do you? What is it then, Potter?’ 

‘Oh, Merlin,’ Potter was holding the glass in front of his face like it would somehow hide the embarrassment in his features. ‘Fuck off, Malfoy.’ 

‘Alright, then, if you want to do it that way,’ Draco said, shrugging, and raised his voice, ‘Oy, it’s my turn now. Never have I ever wanted to be choked.’ 

He’d just thrown one random kink into the air, one easily popular and suitably tame, just to tease Harry a little. Predictably, almost everyone drank - there were some disturbingly heavy glances between Ron and Hermione that Draco forcefully ignored - but it wasn’t their answers that he was interested in. Instead, his eyes found Harry almost immediately after he’d spoken the words. 

Harry had his glass in his hand. Draco thought - idly, as one thinks of a disaster a millisecond before it happens - that if Harry drank he would most likely not think of anything else for the rest of his life. 

Not that he much minded it. There were fewer things lovelier to picture than his fingers sweetly wrapped around Harry’s pale throat. 

There was a beat of expectant silence between them. Harry shook his head, an amused chuckle escaping him, and he looked at Draco squarely as he said, ‘Finnigan, fancy having a shot with me?’ 

‘Always, Harry,’ Finnigan shouted. The boy was an inarticulate jumble of golden and red skin climbing over the others’ laps to leave his seat. Harry smirked, an evil thing for only Draco to see, and then he was standing, clashing against Finnigan’s side and disappearing into the sea of bodies. 

Draco was overwhelmed with the urge to follow them. He felt like a child - why shouldn’t he, when they were playing a game, and Harry had broken the rules? Did it mean he had that particular kink? No? A worse one, or one even more common? When he’d been with Ginny, what had he thought of them doing? What did he like? What brought him to the edge? 

It was unfair, because the question had been designed to make Harry uncomfortable, and now Draco was the one hot and bothered in that table, pressed against Ron’s side and hopeless to imagine all the things Harry liked or not, all the things he’d let Ginny do to him, or did to Ginny, or would let Draco do to him, while Harry was drinking with the overly friendly irish travesty that was Seamus Finnigan, most likely squeezed against him in the cramped bar, and laughing drunkenly at him, their arms laced around each other, those glittery eyelids batting so prettily for that _idiot_ … it truly, really wasn’t fair. 

At least his question served as inspiration for the following ones. Everyone seemed entirely too amused with the prospect of discovering each others' kinks. When Harry and Finnigan returned, significantly giddier and redder in the face than before, they were still talking about it, and Draco couldn’t help but grin smugly after Harry sat beside him. 

‘Should’ve answered that question, Potter. They’ve only gotten worse now.’ 

Harry huffed a little disbelieving sound. ‘You’re fucking kidding me.’ 

Draco shrugged, unable - unwilling - to suppress his vicious smile. ‘Serves you right for running.’ 

‘I wanted a shot,’ Harry said, all fake innocence, the type that doesn’t even try to be believable, that drips teasingly from a sweet smile. He looked like an angel like that, mischief in his eyes, the fiery sheen over them, dishevelled black hair like cinders on his head. Draco hoped he’d die with that picture in his mind. 

‘With Finnigan?’ 

‘Any objections?’ Harry raised an eyebrow, and Draco found himself with nothing to say, which was just as well, because Ron was piping up for his own turn.

‘Never have I ever wanted to be spanked.’ 

‘Ron, mate,’ Harry whined, bending forward so he could stare at the ginger on the other side of Draco. ‘I know we defeated Voldemort together, but we’re hardly close enough for _this_.’ 

‘Oh come on, Harry, no one’s here to judge. You should see the shit these guys have already admitted to. Ain’t that right, Malfoy?’ 

Draco tried for innocent too, though he could never look quite as saintly as Harry. ‘Of course. No one’s here to judge, Potter.’ 

Harry saw right through it - which, admittedly, wasn’t too difficult, since Draco had drunk too much for subtleties - and he pointedly ignored him, looking at Ron instead. 

‘Drink with me, mate?’ 

Ron sniggered. ‘There you go, we’ll make a straight pervert out of you yet, mate.’ 

And they were drinking, along with Sue and Thomas, not the firewhiskey but the wretched Muggle shots, and Draco was absolutely transfixed with the entire exchange, and almost painfully obsessed with the colour of Harry’s cheeks, and the dip of his neck as he drank, and the _admission_ , which was now taking on obscenely graphic contours and sounds in Draco’s mind. 

‘Weasley, please never tell me what goes on in the bedroom with Granger,’ he said, mainly to distract his mind, and was rewarded with Harry’s laughter. 

‘You’re the one who started these questions, Malfoy,’ Ron shrugged. He looked rather proud of himself. 

‘I wasn’t aware there’d be so many answers, though,’ said Draco, ‘Who knew you were all so well versed in sex.’ 

‘We’re not,’ Neville chimed in; he’d started with a burst of confidence, and trailed out into a self-conscious chuckle, ‘I’m a virgin. Just know things, you know… people talk.’ 

‘Is that so?’ Draco quirked a brow; there was an aura of discomfort around the table now that he was very intrigued to explore. ‘Never have I ever had sex.’ 

And the amount of people who drank was much less than he expected. He himself drank, Sue and Alicia did too, as did Ron and Hermione; Finnigan as well, unsurprisingly, and, after a stunted pause, Ginny, almost as quick as lightning. And Draco, because Ginny would always be to him, no matter how heroic she proved, the little girl who’d snatched Potter first, immediately turned, when he saw her drink, to stare at Harry. But Ginny had drunk, and Harry’s glass was stubbornly on the table, and his glittery eyes on his lap, and he wasn’t _drinking_.

The famous Harry fucking Potter, the Chosen One, _his_ Harry was a virgin. 

Draco had seldom felt as much joy as he did in that moment. Maybe when he found out Potter had broken up with that upsettingly beautiful Cho Chang; or the other night, each time he’d seen Harry wearing his coat. In short, it was the type of joy indissociable from Harry; warm and boisterous, dangerous in its intensity, frightening in its hope for future things, for _more_ happiness. The type of joy he got for foolish things that meant nothing at all, little tokens he’d keep in self-indulgence, signs that Harry might not be truly his but at least he wasn’t someone else’s yet. He didn’t know anyone’s touch, wasn’t hiding some affair with someone, couldn’t picture anyone in vivid detail. It wasn’t much - it wasn’t anything, really - but it felt _meaningful_. It made Draco ache with the wish to be the one to introduce him to everything and to assure his first times were the best they could be, because no one in the world would ever care for him as much as Draco; because Draco knew him better than anyone, better than Granger and Weasley, because he’d seen his darkness; because Draco didn’t have that much experience but no one loved Harry as much as him, no one would strive to please as much as him, no one would kiss him as urgently or touch him as sincerely. Because Draco had been wishing for a chance for years, and if only Harry granted him it, if only he allowed Draco to _show_ him, then Draco would cherish it better than anyone else. 

The conversation went on - Luna, Draco thought absently, had asked some question. But Draco wasn’t listening in the slightest, because his body was nearly entirely faced towards Harry, and he was trying with all his strengths to reign back the longing in his voice and replace it with something akin to amusement when he spoke:

‘And how is it exactly that the Boy Who Lived hasn’t gotten laid yet?’ 

Harry’s eyes - beautiful, Draco bloody _loved_ him - flickered up to him. His smile was crooked, a bit embarrassed, and he sipped his firewhiskey to realight that challenge in him. 

‘Believe it or not, between all those threats against my life and shit, there hasn’t been much time for sex.’ 

Draco had absolutely no idea how that was possible. Even in the midst of the world’s end, he’d had plenty of time to think about Harry. 

‘Not that you’d know, Potter,’ he said, and his tone had gone a bit lower, because that conversation at least would be for both of them only, and his lips were twitching into a smirk. ‘But sex is one of those things you make time for.’

Harry snorted. He was still holding his glass close to his face, as if at any minute he’d need another sip, and in the red light his eyeshadow took on a sinful intensity, and he was Lust incarnate.

‘Were Death Eaters always at it then?’ he asked, eyebrows raised skeptically - he was staring at Draco intently, like he was _appraising_ him, and Draco reckoned that it was only fair that he’d be allowed to speak a bit more plainly, to just hint at the suggestion, to implant the idea in Harry’s mind, because Harry seemed, in that moment - though it might just be the lighting, and the alcohol, and the conversation - almost _receptive_. 

Liquid courage pumping violent red in his arteries, Draco let through his smirk just a fraction of his hunger, just enough that Harry would see it if he was _looking_ for it, and pitched his voice even lower. 

‘Enough to get some experience on the matter. Why, are you curious, Potter?’

Harry’s gaze flickered momentarily at the other side of the table, caught on something, and then he was leaning to the side, closer to Draco - suffocatingly close - and his eyes glinted mischievously.

‘I think maybe you should head to the bar, Malfoy.’ 

‘I should?’ Draco murmured. They were so close he could see the sprinklings of the different shades of glitter; the veins running under the flushed skin on his neck, the enticing red blooming in the bite marks on his bottom lip. 

Harry nodded. ‘Hermione’s going there. You did say you’d apologize.’ 

‘I… What?’ Draco uttered, and then trailed his eyes to the table, to that spot Harry had glanced at before, and he saw Hermione sliding through the seats, moving to stand. When he turned back to Harry their closeness was gone, and Harry was leaning back with an offensively proud look on his face. 

‘As good a time as any, don’t you think?’ he said, and Draco _knew_ he was being mocked, and he was caught in the most unbearable mix of arousal, frustration, vulnerability and _fear_ \- because perhaps Harry had seen the hunger in him, and toyed with it for his own amusement. What could be more entertaining than the pathetic Draco Malfoy hoping for a chance with the unattainable Potter? 

But Harry hadn’t seemed to want to _hurt_ him exactly. Just… amused. And Draco had definitely drunk too much, because he couldn’t for the hell of him figure out what that meant. 

‘If you weren’t so bloody stupid, you would have been a great Slytherin, Potter,’ he said, because every other response he could think of was something undignified and downright needy, and Draco was not stooping to that level. He did, however, beckon Harry to the side with an impatient, slightly shaking hand. ‘Well, are you going to let me stand or not?’ 

Harry bit his lip to stop from grinning, and stood himself so Draco could slide out. Draco turned, meaning to hand out some half-hearted complaint, but Harry had already plastered himself to Ron’s side, in Draco’s old seat, immersed in the game. 

With a frustrated tensing of his lips, Draco turned again and set out to find Granger through the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The question is: who do you think showed their House best?
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	7. The House Party II

She’d managed to cut the dense sea of bodies and neared the bar, elbows propped up on it, her wild curls unmistakable. After a lot of pushing and being pushed, and a brief, inarticulate altercation with some worryingly drunk Ravenclaw whose teeth had been transfigured into sapphires, Draco secured a place beside her, sliding in with relative grace and tapping her shoulder. 

‘I confess I haven’t figured out how you’re showing Gryffindor yet.’ 

Hermione glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She didn’t seem at all pleased to see him, which Draco thought was only fair. He wasn’t much happy to be there either. 

‘I didn’t want to be obvious,’ she answered and, bringing her hand to her hair, pulling just slightly, with an utterly indifferent look on her face, she detached her head from her neck - not completely, no, a little inch of muscle connected chin to neck, but the rest was cut off bone and dark-blooded flesh, only the slightest glint betraying the Charm. ‘Nearly Headless Nick is as much Gryffindor as gold and scarlet.’

‘I’m impressed,’ Draco said. He meant it - there was something horrifyingly fascinating about the little bloody fibers dangling from the ragged edges of her skin. She placed her head back atop her neck carefully, and the skin sutured seamlessly. ‘Granger. Hermione. I want to apologize.’ 

‘I figured,’ she said simply. She was still not quite looking at him, instead following the busy bartender pouring beers on the other side of the bar. ‘Harry told you to do it, didn’t he?’ 

Draco sighed. It was a much less charming apology than he was used to, all stunted, awkward sincerity, and he really should have insisted on doing it in a more appropriate time. 

‘He advised me to do it sooner rather than later. I planned to do it regardless.’ 

It wasn’t the incontestable truth, nor obvious dishonesty. 

The bartender finally caught her eye, and she ordered some wizard’s brew. ‘Do you want anything?’ 

‘No. Actually, I’d like some beer as well.’ 

‘So, are you going to apologize or not?’ Hermione asked, one expectant eyebrow raised. Next to them, on the other side of the bar, the bartender filled their glasses. 

He thought of how near Harry’s face had been to his, how challenging his eyes had been, because he’d always needed some motivation before admitting to his mistakes. 

‘I was rude. And though I’m aware you might not find that unsurprising coming from me, I still regret it.'

Hermione’s smile was an unconvinced little thing. ‘I know it’s not easy for you, Malfoy. But it isn’t easy for us either,’ she looked at him at last, and there was some sort of sadness in her eye that made Draco feel small. ‘It’d help if you didn’t behave like a complete twat all the time.’ 

Draco snorted. Drinks poured, he took a sip of his. The froth was bitter in his tongue. He regretted having bought it, should have stopped drinking after those blasted shots, but there was something about those nights that made him reckless. 

‘I can try,’ he offered, a reminiscence of Harry’s earlier words. 

Hermione’s eyebrow remained impeccably arched. She took her own glass in her hand. ‘You’ll succeed, if you want to hang out. I mean it, Malfoy.’ 

‘I don’t doubt it, Granger.’ 

Her smile, this time, held some genuine humour. They were pushed aside by a group of people who were trying to reach the bar, and compressed against the edge of it. Draco didn’t think he’d ever been that close to Hermione Granger. Idly, with a hint of nostalgia, he remembered that time in third year when she’d punched him. He’d hardly left his room the following days, too embarrassed to let Potter see his bruised face. 

‘Oh, and don’t mention this to Ron, alright? I thought best not to tell him of your… outburst the other day. He took enough time as it was to come around to you.’ 

That surely explained why Weasley had been so relatively tame towards him. Sometimes, Draco suspected the ginger hated him more than Harry did. 

‘I won’t. Though I must say, I thought you’d tell Weasley everything. You’re one of the tightest couples I’ve ever met,’ and then, making sure his voice kept the same light note as before, he added, ‘Potter must feel like quite the third wheel.’ 

Hermione frowned, and Draco thought he might have gone too far, strayed too much from safe politeness, and he was readying himself for his _second_ apology in that cramped, noisy, ungodly place, but then Hermione was reaching out for his arm and leading him out the suffocating crowd by the bar. They didn’t head to the table either; she brought them to a corner, next to the narrow corridor where the loos were, less crowded and dimmer, a refreshing break from the hectic energy at the center of the pub. The act felt strangely intimate, seeing as they’d been bickering just a little while ago, and Draco couldn’t quite believe that he was having a private chat with Hermione Granger in a pub, could hardly believe that was his life, but he wasn’t going to complain just yet. 

‘I hardly think he does,’ she said, though her tone had taken on something pensive. She leaned against the scratched wooden boards of the wall, sipping her drink, and Draco did the same. ‘We’re still best mates, the three of us. My relationship with Ron hasn’t changed much either, apart from the obvious,’ she flushed a little, which Draco thought was very understandable, since he had just sat in a table while they subtly listed off all their sexual preferences. ‘Besides, even if he does, it won’t be for long. He’s bound to find a girlfriend soon, once he gets over Ginny.’ 

Draco brought the glass to his lips to hide the bitter way they twitched. The snakes in his arms hissed at his wrists. ‘Why did he and the little Weasley break it off?’ 

‘Ginny, you mean. Harry didn’t tell us too much. I reckon they both decided it wouldn’t work.’ 

He kept his gaze trained on the floorboards. ‘He does look rather hung up on her, though.’ 

Hermione turned so her shoulder was now against the wall and she was better facing Draco. Her features had crisped into something concerned. 

‘Does he? Ron and I thought he’d been getting better. Do you know Leanne? Harry was talking of asking her out.’ 

Such was the thing with alcohol - even Granger, so contrite in her sharing when sober, was rendered generous and carefree. And Draco knew he’d deserved it, he’d asked for it, he’d _steered_ the conversation into this very place, but it still dug some cold, hollow spot in his chest, dark inside his ribcage, and he held onto his glass tightly. 

Leanne. A whiny little girl, Katie Bell’s friend, an awkward face to see around the halls. The polar opposite of Ginny Weasley, all tame energy, crossed legs as she read in the grass, mediocre in every class, pretty smile but not _beautiful_. How could she be the one Harry was interested in? It was some kind of cosmic joke; it was Gods conspiring to drive Draco crazy, it was the universe’s way of telling him that Harry Potter, in his search for romance, would choose _every_ single person except for him. 

‘Did he tell you that?’ 

‘The other day. He did invite her to the party, but she was working on the Transfiguration essay overnight,’ Hermione’s frown deepened, ‘I do hope she isn’t just a rebound for Ginny. She’s a nice girl.’ 

He’d _invited_ her. And Draco - what an _idiot_ he was - had let himself spin the most wistful hidden intentions behind that night. He’d thought that, when Harry had invited him in the greenhouses, it had _meant_ something. He’d been pulled into the intense green of Harry’s eyes, when they were sitting so close together, and thought that Harry could somehow, someday _feel_ something. He’d been growing an inkling of hope all night, fragile and tentative, after years of heartbreak - and there was no excuse, and he should have known better, because he was the unlikeable Draco Malfoy and Harry was the marvelous Harry Potter, and maybe he’d been extended an invitation, because Harry was simply too friendly and kind and _lovely_ to exclude him, but it didn’t mean he was special, or valued, or _liked_. And whenever they’d talked throughout the night, those thrilling exchanges that had meant so much to Draco, and figured to him so charged with _something_ , to Harry had been nothing but unremarkable conversations; and that slow, honey-sweet moment where Harry had been close enough to kiss, and looking not exactly like he wanted it but like he was at least _aware_ of the possibility, had been nothing but Harry teasing him, and how could Draco have _ever_ allowed himself to hope for more? 

With an insurmountable effort to keep his tone levelled, and an acid feeling like bile on his throat, he bit out, ‘She hardly seems like Potter’s type.’ 

Hermione tapped her glass thoughtfully. The red lighting flashed on her neck, and Draco, by instinct, sought the invisible line in her neck where her head had detached. 

‘I don’t think there’s such a thing as ‘types’.’

‘Of course there are. Potter’s Potter. He likes excitement. Hence the young- Ginny, I mean. Leanne doesn’t compare.’ 

There was something in Hermione’s eyes, that sharpness of thought that always made her so intense, like she was miles ahead, fixing consequences of problems others were bound to make. Still, she was keeping it at bay - a half-sober thought not to meddle, most likely, and she shrugged:

‘She’s a nice girl.’ 

Draco rolled her eyes. Was it that difficult to see that she was _wrong_ for Harry?

‘Yes, I know, you’ve said that twice already. No one’s debating that she’s perfectly nice. Do you think she suits him, though?’ 

Hermione huffed. ‘You’re awful interested in this, aren’t you?’ 

‘It’s an interesting topic,’ Draco dismissed, ‘You haven’t answered my question. Surely you see they aren’t right for each other.’ 

‘He fancies her. She seems to fancy him back. What more do they need?’ 

‘They need- Look, the point is Harry _deserves_ \- I mean, he doesn’t… He deserves someone with his particular brand of idiocy, alright?’ he said, but his words had trailed off into something defeated, something _terrified_ , because he knew he hadn’t sounded convincing and he’d known as he said it that there was no way he could salvage that sentence, no way Hermione wouldn’t know what he had intended to say, and he watched with a white streak of panic as her eyes widened, narrowed, then rounded with surprise. 

‘Malfoy, do you-’ 

‘I’m drunk,’ he said, words a cold, weak wisp. He didn’t even have the strength to face her - he was afraid she’d _know_ , if she saw his eyes. 

‘You’re not _that_ drunk,’ Hermione retorted, and her tone had taken on a soft kindness that broke him a little bit, ‘You don’t- you don’t _like_ him, do you?’ 

‘No.’ 

He’d told that lie so many times in his life. Never before had it sounded so poor. 

‘Draco.’ 

‘Quit it, Granger,’ he snapped. He would have moved - he would have left that fucking place and gone back to Hogwarts, and gone up to the library, and spied on fucking Leanne until his eyes were blurry with unshed tears - but he was rooted to his spot, veins ice and muscles stone, Hermione’s gaze pinning him in place. 

‘Alright. Alright, yeah, I’ll forget about it,’ she said, voice still overly gentle, clearly trying to suppress her curiosity. She didn’t move either; they drank their wizard’s brew in tense silence. 

Pansy knew. He’d told Pansy and it hadn’t been a problem. It had been a relief, telling her. But this - and this was happening, he couldn’t take it back, could never undo it, could never wish it away - was entirely different, was impossibly worse. _Hermione_ Granger knew. Hermione Granger knew, and sure, she was kind, and sure, she’d said she would forget it, but Draco was closely acquainted with empty promises: people didn’t simply forget, and curiosity always won. No one was saintly enough - well, maybe Potter - to stick with a flimsy promise made to a sort of enemy. As soon as he was gone, Hermione would tell Harry and Ron everything; even if she wasn’t certain, she’d recount the strange conversation, and Harry would _realize_ , and how was it that this secret he’d kept since his first year of school could be destroyed so easily, with just a few drunken words and a pesky spurt of jealousy? 

Draco was a proud person. This, however, dark-rooted and shameful, was much beyond any hope for dignity. 

‘Hermione. It’s not true,’ he swallowed, and met her gaze at last, ‘It’s not true. But don’t tell Potter. Please.’ 

Hermione regarded him with something akin to pity. Why wouldn’t she, when Draco was the height of pathetic, sputtering helpless nonsense, clinging to his lie and begging for secrecy? 

‘I won’t. I promise, Draco.’ 

She meant it, Draco could hear it in her voice. It didn’t ease him, however; it made it worse, because now she surely knew, he’d vanquished any doubts she might have. She knew, _Granger_ knew, and he could only last five seconds in that tense, _knowing_ silence before he was running out the dim corner and sliding into the narrow corridor to their right, disappearing into the men’s loo. 

There were three stalls; a row of sinks lining the opposite wall. The mirror was dirty, the light busted, the walls graffitied. Some lanky Hufflepuff was checking on the charm that had coloured his hair butter yellow; someone, by the sound of it, was throwing up in one of the stalls. Draco locked himself in the farthest one and leaned against the door. 

He ought to leave. Really, that was the smartest thing to do. He wouldn’t be able to look Harry in the eye; he wouldn’t be able to pretend, when he knew there was someone at that table who would be able to see through it. Someone who’d detect the fondness in his eye, the shy warmth in his words, the desperate tendrils of love that were ever apparent in the cracks of his demeanour. How could he ever talk to Harry without remembering the way Hermione had looked at him once she’d realized, like she too knew he was doomed in this love, like she could see the endless suffering destined for him?

No, it was best to go back to Hogwarts. He wouldn’t even wait for the train; he could go to Honeydukes and bribe the man into letting him use the secret passage back to the castle. The halls would be dark and blissfully quiet; he could try and get himself into the kitchens, put the kettle on, make himself some tea and drink it in the peace of the common room. He wouldn’t go to the library, he wouldn’t spy on Leanne. He wouldn’t wallow on what he couldn’t have. For years he’d survived by denying and suppressing; it wasn’t now, with all these changes, these reckless indulgences in _hope_ , that he’d forgotten how to do it. Perhaps it would hurt more, but he’d apply enough practice, and soon it would all seem as natural as breathing. Just a few days, yes, a few days where he’d stay primly away from Potter and his friends, and then it would all go back to normal, and he’d analyse this situation with Hermione with fresh eyes, maybe even ask Pansy for advice, and he’d get everything sorted out. Nothing worse had to happen. Nothing that terrible _had_ happened. Just an inconvenience. Granger was a stickler: she wouldn’t break her promise. He’d trust her. It was alright. All he had to do was slip back into the crowd and leave, get back to Hogwarts and get a good night’s sleep. 

For a long time, Draco repeated this thoughtline to himself, leaning against the sticky door and willing his pulse to slow and his breaths to steady. The lanky Hufflepuff gave one unimpressive groan, then left with a loud snapping of the door shut; the guy in the other stall gathered himself and left as well. Some stumbling pair barricaded itself in the stall adjacent to his and made out against the wall dividing their stalls, which was particularly awkward and only gave Draco the sort of ideas he was most trying to ignore at that moment. The people around him changed, footsteps coming by ever so often, the sound of a faucet running or a stall door opening and closing, the beats of the music outside muffled and entrancing. He was calmer, after a while, and the plan he’d been reciting in a patient, if somewhat desperate monologue was finally starting to sound appealing, and he finally left the stall. He had to find the man who’d checked him at the door and retrieve his coat before he could leave and put that dreaded night past him. 

In front of the wide mirror, Harry was inspecting the glitter on his eyes. 

‘Hey, mate,’ he said, eyelids batting in surprise when he caught sight of Draco’s reflection. Draco just stood there, frozen where he was. ‘Hermione said you weren’t feeling well. We thought you’d left.’ 

‘I didn’t.’ 

‘I see that,’ Harry snorted, so utterly nonchalant. Granger hadn’t told him, then. Yes, it was all fine. He just had to excuse himself and leave. ‘Are you alright? Were you ill? Absinthe is wretched to keep in the first time.’ 

‘I’m _fine_ , Potter.’ 

‘Merlin, Malfoy, I was just asking,’ Harry turned his back on the mirror so he could properly look at Draco. ‘D’you apologize to Hermione then?’

‘I did. Didn’t she say?’ 

Harry shrugged. ‘She just said you were feeling ill. Thought maybe you’d backed out,’ he smirked, ‘Was it as hard as you thought it would be?’ 

‘I never thought it would be _hard_ , Potter,’ Draco huffed. He was still standing just outside the stall, and he had half a mind to just walk out without another word - because why should he be polite, why should he act friendly when they could never be _friends_? But Harry had a strange aura around him - he made Draco’s world small and focused, and every concern washed out faced with the sheer frustration, the unexplainable comfort, the unique _thrill_ of talking to him. Draco simply wasn’t strong enough to leave. 

‘Right. Then why’d you push it off for so long?’

‘One would think that you’d be familiar with the term ‘procrastination’. Or is the word too long for you?’ 

Harry snorted. He was holding onto the edges of the ceramic sink behind him, and his eyes were simmering with a disconcerting swirl of annoyance and amusement, and his glasses were pushed up into his hair, jumbled in the dark strands. He looked unfairly beautiful. 

‘You’re even more of a git when you drink.’ 

He turned back to the mirror, bending over the sink so he could better check the colourful shimmer. It was a good image; Draco could live with it, fold it neatly in his archive - Harry in that dim bathroom, turning away from him, phoenix glitter on his eyes. The last memory of their strange, brief friendship. It was the perfect time to leave. 

‘You know, Potter, I-’ 

‘Will you be a complete arsehole if I ask you to help?’ 

‘Actually, I was-’ he sighed, ‘What do you need?’ 

‘Just…’ he gestured vaguely at his eyes. Draco took a few steps closer to the mirror. ‘Do they look the same? At all?’ 

Draco snorted. ‘Surely you’re not so drunk that you can’t see that yourself.’

‘You know, I _asked_ if you were going to be an arse-’

‘It’s perfectly fine, Potter.’ 

‘It’s bloody not,’ he pressed a small black bag against Draco’s chest. ‘Get me the- the gold shit, you’ll know it when you find it.’

The bag was filled with makeup products. Draco smirked as he rummaged through it, jutting his hip against the cold ceramic of the sink.

‘Is this yours?’ 

Harry glared. ‘Do you honestly think I’d have that much makeup? It’s Alicia’s.’ 

He did always walk around with his cheeks slightly pink - which Draco had blamed on the little strolls he liked to take between classes, in the winter, out into the white snow; or all the impromptu Quidditch games he’d start during the warmer seasons, as if the the very notion of being still for longer than ten minutes drove him insane. And his lips were always a shade too red - obscenely so, like he’d done it on purpose, like it was some cruel plan to assure Draco could get absolutely no work done while Harry was within his field of sight, chewing on the scruffed edge of his quill with those bloody red lips. It would make _sense_ if he wore makeup.

He found a little transparent cylinder filled with golden glitter. He handed it to Harry. 

‘This was a bloody terrible idea you had.’ 

‘Oh, fuck off,’ Harry laughed. He dabbed some of it on his fingertips and brushed it from the corner of his eyebrows to his temples. It was a hypnotizing vision. ‘You don’t like it?’ 

‘I like it.’ 

Harry smiled. Idly, with gold-stained fingers, he gestured at the snakes writhing in Draco’s forearms. 

‘You didn’t do too bad either. I thought you’d ignore me and try to bring your tie. I’m impressed.’ 

It was barely a compliment, said in that snarky tone of Harry’s, but Draco was ridiculously proud all the same. 

‘You should know, Potter, I’m quite good at things when I apply an effort.’ 

‘And you ‘applied an effort’, did you?’ Harry asked, one amused eyebrow raised.

‘Of course. I like to look good at parties.’ 

‘Well, you don’t look half bad.’ 

Draco spoke levelled, as if his heart wasn’t a rushed ache in his chest. ‘I look good, you mean.’

Harry chuckled, stared back at the stained mirror, dabbed more gold on his fingers. 

‘Don’t be smug, Malfoy. The snakes look good. Almost the best of the party. Pass me the red one now.’

Draco obliged. ‘Who’s the best, then?’

’Didn’t Hermione show you the head thing? It’s wicked,’ Harry snapped the lid of the red glitter, sliding the bright flames across his skin. ‘Who do you think wins?' 

Instinctively, he would have answered Harry; if he thought about it objectively, he would have gone with Hermione. But he didn’t want to mention her, didn’t want to be reminded of their conversation, so he just shrugged.

‘Lovegood’s raven was good.’

There was a pulse of silence, during which Draco was content watching Harry mesh the different shades in uncoordinated tries, and suppressing the insane urge to offer to properly help, to feel the thin skin of Harry’s eyelids under his fingers. Then, the bathroom door slammed open - a high-pitched laugh, a squeal, a groan from a lower voice; the door slammed shut equally as loudly, and a mess of entwined limbs and clashing lips stumbled through the bathroom. The couple ran into the middle stall, paying them no mind, and locked themselves inside with a hysterical fit of laughter. 

Through his reflection in the mirror, Draco could see that Harry was trying not to laugh. He was so close - hadn’t Draco been in one of those stalls a minute ago, determined to never be that close to Potter ever again? Just a while ago he’d been terrified, slowing his breathing while another couple kissed a few inches from him, on the other side of the graffitied stall door. What on _earth_ was he doing now? 

‘Actually, Potter, I think I’ll be going.’ 

Harry’s head jerked back. He looked concerned, and it _hurt_. 

‘Not having fun?’ 

‘It’s a bloody childish party, Potter.’ 

‘Kind of the point, Malfoy,’ Harry huffed. He’d thrown all the glitter vials into Alicia’s bag, and was propped up on the sink again, ‘We go to a stupid party, we play stupid games. Not like we had much time to do it before.’ 

Draco stared stubbornly at some point over Harry’s shoulder. ‘I’m tired. I’ll be off.’ 

He handed Harry the stupid bag, and started towards the door. Harry’s voice, somewhat rushed, as if he’d spoken on impulse, made him pause midway. 

‘Malfoy. Don’t go.’ 

He swallowed. Perhaps Hermione had indeed told him. Perhaps he’d been playing oblivious all this time, taking pity on him, and now he’d broach the subject. Let him down gently. Laugh. 

‘I had a question.’ 

‘Well? You can say it from there, Potter, I’m not bloody deaf.’ 

Harry bit his lip. He was fiddling with the zipper of the bag, all of him a mess of unbridled energy - and Draco was coming to find that Harry took on a dangerous level of restless when he drank, when the shred of sense within him was gone and he was nothing but that ridiculous, nonsensically charming urge to _move_. Outside, clearer now that he was close to the door, the music still pulsed in its hypnotizing beats; the murmuring of chatter outside, promising a loud cacophony of voices as soon as he left the bathroom; and inside, in the dim lighting, within the dirty lines of tiles, Harry, _Harry_ , telling him to stay. 

‘In the game,’ Harry’s gaze was skittering around his figure, always a neutrino away from properly landing on Draco, ‘The game, earlier, when we were talking about the scars - the one you said, not the Dark Mark, the one on your chest. Was it the one… was it me that did it?’ 

His tone was soft, that usual stubborn edge dulled. It occurred to Draco that he’d never quite seen his work - the way his words, that wisk of his wand, had cut forever through Draco’s skin. 

‘Sectumsempra. You know what it means, don’t you?’ 

‘I looked it up after,’ Harry said. 

‘Would have done us both good if you’d looked it up before.’ 

‘I would have used it regardless,’ Harry’s eyes had sharpened; they made Draco remember the word that had been about to spill from his own lips that day, ‘I don’t get it, Malfoy. You said you never hated me. Why were you going to do it, then?’ 

The couple inside the stall was carrying on with obscene little sounds. It didn’t fit their conversation, the darkness of the memory they were discussing - it made it lack poetry, or romance, or solemnity, or anything else he could have hidden behind. All he had were clumsy words and a tied tongue.

‘I was meant to hate you, and I couldn’t. Don’t you think that was even worse? Don’t you think my life would have been much simpler if I had hated you?’

It was so close to the truth. It was a slippery cliff he was on, drunk and _devastated_ , and Harry looked distraught but _oblivious_ \- he hadn’t understood, he’d never understand, because Draco had wished his love away for so long that he’d made it invisible. 

At last, and quite surprisingly, Harry broke into a small laugh. His voice, when he spoke, was hushed, like he didn’t want the drunken couple to hear. 

‘I’m not sure if I’m supposed to apologize for that.’ 

Draco snorted. He had the preposterous urge to cry. ‘You bloody well could.’ 

‘I’m sorry, then,’ Harry’s tone seemed to be wavering between serious and amused, ‘I’m sorry you couldn’t hate me.’ 

‘Oh, sod off.’ 

Harry laughed again, a soft little sound that melted into softer words.

‘Can I see the scar?’ 

The request surprised Draco. That scar had been dug into his chest for over a year now; he’d hated it fiercely at first, pathetically, childishly, like he didn’t know he was fighting a war, like he didn’t know he was expected to hurt, and bleed, and be scarred. Each time he saw it through the plain of pale skin he’d feel like a snotty kid, and remember the trickling of water down the pipes of the bathroom, and the scorching pain as light burst through the tip of Harry’s wand. He’d been repulsed by it. With time, it had dulled to something more condescending. A reminder of his failure that he wore as proudly as his name, if only to irk the judging gazes around him. 

It was also something Potter had given him. For the first few days, he’d felt the thrumming of his magic there. A dark bond between them, blood and hurt - something, in any sense. For Draco, in sixth year, when everything else was crumbling around him, it had felt like an anchor to the world. 

He walked gingerly back to Harry. His own expression, when he saw it in the mirror, was eerily devoid of the turmoil inside him. 

‘You want me to take my shirt off?’ he asked, all faux nonchalance - a little too hushed to be convincing - because he needed to hear Harry laugh. 

He did, and the sound was blissfully refreshing. ‘Just fucking unbutton it, you twat.’ 

Draco undid the buttons - the charcoal fabric fell to each side of his chest, revealing his skin, the ragged pulling of skin crossing it, slightly paler, from hip to shoulder; like he’d been split in half, glued together in a haste. He was embarrassed, he thought; feelings were melding together in the drunken fuzz of his mind. 

‘Is it what you had in mind?’ 

‘No,' Harry murmured. Every shred of humour had been swept off his face. His eyes, without the glasses, were eerily intense, 'I thought… with what Snape did, I thought it would be small.'

The air was cold on his skin; the weight of Harry's gaze made him want to squirm. He always wanted to _impress_ Potter - how could he now, with something so ugly and weak bared for him to see?

'What Snape did was to keep me alive, not to keep me pretty.' 

Harry snorted - and his fingers swept over the raised skin, a ghostly touch, as if asking for permission. Draco shuddered a breath; inside the stall, the couple was still laughing, and it was impossible to dissociate what _they_ were surely doing with the warmth and the _comfort_ of Harry's fingers on his skin, and he was now fearing that he'd actually left the Three Broomsticks and gone to Hogwarts, and all of this - the bathroom, the distant music, the Phoenix glitter, Harry touching his bare chest - were nothing more but one of those lucid, bittersweet dreams that always made him somber and aloof the morning after. 

'What are you so curious about, Potter?'

Harry shrugged. He was tracing up the sinuous line, towards Draco's shoulder. 'I don't know,' he tapped the smooth skin over Draco's sternum, and Draco was honestly going to _die_ , 'Do you resent me for it?' 

'Obviously. It's a bloody big scar, Potter.' 

Harry laughed. His eyes flickered up to meet Draco's, his tone soft.

'It doesn't look that bad.' 

Draco could feel his heart beating furious against his ribs - did the rhythm reach his skin, did Harry feel it with his fingers? Was Harry's heart beating as fast, with them standing so close, their voices hushed, their breaths, warm and smelling of alcohol, mingling together as Harry tilted his head up, with Harry's hand splayed on Draco's chest?

'No?' he asked, and he could have said something else - would have, and it would have been unbearably sentimental, by the sickly sweet taste already on his tongue, but then there was a crash, a high-pitched laugh coming from the stalls.

'They've been in there a long time,' Harry said, almost a complaint, like they were extending their welcome, like those miserable minutes would have been enough to properly shag someone.

'That's not a long time, Potter,' Draco snorted. What on earth had he and the little Weasley done that took so _little?_

Harry huffed. 'You know what I mean.' 

'I really don't,' he drawled, 'Honestly, Potter, one would think The Boy Who Lived would have more stamina-' 

He was cut off, then. 

He was cut off by Harry's lips. 

Harry was _kissing_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, to keep with the trend, will be called The House Party III, but a very adequate alternative title would have been 'Gratuitous Semi-Public Smut'.
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	8. The House Party III

A rushed clash of lips that was entirely too warm, and sudden, and firm as it pressed against his own - and Harry's hand was still on his chest, over his scar, and Harry was fucking kissing him, and Draco had dreamt about this for _years_ , so, even if he didn't quite know what was happening, his instincts - phantom muscle memory from all his fantasies - kicked in, and he kissed back, hard, hungry, for the most self-indulgent, blissful moment of his life, before he forced his mouth away, catching Harry by the back of his neck to still him, to keep him close but not enough, so they were panting into each other's mouths.

'What the bloody hell, Potter?' he asked. How pitiful that his voice was so ragged after one kiss. 

Harry's eyes were moving wildly across Draco's face, excited, restless, pupils blown - and what the fuck did that mean? How the hell was it conceivable in any fucking universe that Harry was like this, beautiful and flushed and _wanting_ , from kissing him? 

Draco was drunk, and he'd been on edge all night, and he'd been paranoid since birth: the thought occurred to him that perhaps this was a game. Perhaps Harry's fingers would sink into his chest now and pull out his pathetically hopeful heart, all saccharine flourishes and idiotic dreams of love, and laugh at its softness, the way it pumped meek and trusting in his palm. 

But Harry simply swallowed, smiled a little crooked, and offered lamely, 'You never bloody shut up,' before he was kissing him _again_ , hands crawling up to Draco's shoulders, under his open chest, so he could lean up and better reach his lips. 

Idly, in the logic side of his mind, he was sure Harry was doing this because he was drunk, and that he should stop this. As it was, he'd never felt happier in his life, so he just clamped his hand down harder on the back of Harry's neck - and _fuck_ , he got to do that now -, stilling him again so he could growl: 

'Stall, Potter. Now.' 

Harry nodded frantically, and they rushed to the stall Draco had been in just a few minutes ago, when the world had seemed to be crashing down upon him. As soon as the flimsy lock clicked shut, Draco pushed Harry against the tiles, pressing their bodies together, drawing a long breath as he took in the situation. 

He leaned in himself for the first time. He was fucking surprised that Potter _let_ him.

The urgency ebbed into curiosity now; their hands were in each other's hair, and Draco had _always_ wanted to know if Harry's hair was as soft as it seemed, and it bloody _was_ , but it also had the most sinful firmness when Draco _pulled_ ; their chests were plastered together, bleeding heat into each other; their lips moving in slick slides of saliva, Harry's parted open so Draco could flick his tongue between them, just to taste, just in honour of his past self, who'd thought about doing it a million times. 

'Think we can last longer than them?' he asked with a smirk, tilting his head towards the other stalls, from where they could hear a string of muffled moans. 

'I don't actually fucking know,' Harry laughed against his mouth, and he shifted, pressed himself further against Draco, and Draco could feel an unmistakable hardness against his leg, and he suddenly agreed with Harry's answer - because the fact that he was here with Harry, that Harry was hard because of _him_ , that it'd become his job, his bloody privilege to fucking take care of it now, was threatening to make his own stamina shamefully short-fused. 

'Fuck, Potter,' he breathed out, and latched on the skin of his jaw, kissing the solid bone there, nibbling with a little too much teeth; Harry moaned, an actual broken sound that felt almost painfully vulnerable, and Draco wanted to be the only person who ever made Harry like this. 

On a leap of courage, he fitted his thigh snugly between Harry's legs, thrusting up to provide the slightest friction to his erection. Nothing that couldn't be passed off as accidental if Harry was actually just in the mood for some drunken snogging, an innocent release of steam - but enough that he could remember having done it, even if only for memory's sake. 

Harry went a delightful kind of boneless where he stood pinned between the wall and Draco's body.

 _'Fuck, Merlin_ , Malfoy,' he gasped, rocking down against Malfoy's thigh. There was a thud as the door of the other stall fell open, and the other couple went zigzagging out the bathroom with ragged breaths. It was just as well - their noises were incredibly distracting, and far less interesting than the huffed little sounds spilling from Harry's lips. 

'Oh, we can certainly last more than them,' Draco smirked against the the shell of Harry's ear, then deliberately thrust up, 'Unless you're too eager, Potter?' 

'Do you actually _never_ shut up?' Harry groaned, all false bite, pulling on Draco's hair to guide their lips together again in something with a lot more tongue. There was a hunger there, not only Draco's but Harry's too, like he really wanted it, like he wanted _him_ , and it was making Draco dizzy. 

'I do sometimes,' he sucked a patch of skin below Harry's collar, 'when there's better things to do.' 

'Yeah?' Harry laughed, breathless, digging his nails into Draco's shoulders. If Draco had a little more confidence, he could have easily lifted Harry, felt his legs around his waist - but as it was, he was still too unsure of what he was _allowed_ to do. 'I'm honoured, then.' 

'Well, if you feel special _now_ …' he chuckled, bold fingers creeping down to cup Harry's cock. He gave it a vicious squeeze, and bit off a grunt at the sheer _bliss_ of the entire situation. He could hardly believe it was real. 

'Oh, fuck, Malfoy, fuck, please,' Harry was panting, trying to rock against Draco's body. His eyes were the most delicious type of desperate, red glitter framing blown black pupils that glistened with arousal, and it was the most bloody beautiful thing Draco had ever seen. His own erection was painful in his jeans, and he let their foreheads fall together, still teasing the tips of his fingers down the outline of Harry's length. 

'You bloody win, you know?' 

'What?'

'The contest,' Draco occupied himself with kissing down Harry's throat so he didn't have to meet his gaze. He had no idea what had possessed him to say it, 'Who better showed their House.' 

'Oh,' Harry said, and Draco could practically see, from all his years of experience, the devilish smirk that was blooming on his face, 'I fucking knew you'd liked it, Malfoy.' 

'I bloody told you I liked it before.' 

'Only a little while ago. You could have told me before,' Harry pressed eagerly against Draco's lean thigh, 'and you could have told me _better_.' 

Draco snorted. 'Well, I do think this more than makes up for it.' 

Harry's laugh was cut off by a moan when Draco unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, cupping him now through the flimsy - and fucking _wet_ already, a little spot of precum, and Draco would never think about anything else in his fucking life - fabric of his underwear. 'You know,' Harry said between breaths, 'You win for me too. The- those fucking _snakes_ , I couldn't stare at anything else since I _saw_ you.' 

The words made something very warm and dangerously sweet bloom in Draco's chest. He couldn't help but find Harry's lips again, diving his tongue deep into his mouth this time, needy and possessive and fucking _in love_. 

'Bloody hell, Potter, how long have you been thinking of snogging me senseless?' 

Harry snorted. 'Since I found you here in the bathroom, basically.'

He sounded _guilty_ , which was incredibly rich seeing as Draco had wanted to do it since first year, but Draco was surely not going to complain. 

'Alright, fuck, Potter, what have you _done_ exactly?'

Harry looked at him quizzically - because he always got so wrapped up in things he could barely think, the twat - and Draco rolled his eyes. 

'What've you done with the young Weasley? I mean, I already know you're a virgin,' Draco saw Harry's little expression of embarrassment, and he went on with a smirk, 'Which is perfectly fine, but it makes me wonder how far you want to _go_.' 

'I- Are you seriously-'

'Can I suck you off, Potter?' 

Because the awful Ginny Weasley hadn't drunk when Longbottom had asked who'd ever given a blowjob, which meant Harry had most likely never gotten one, and Draco really fucking wanted to be the _first_. 

Harry groaned at the question, eyes widening so prettily, even more when Draco, with a lecherous smile, sunk primly to his knees. 

'Ever gotten your cock sucked?' he asked as he worked on shrugging Harry's jeans and underwear down, just to make sure, just to hear Potter _say_ it. 

'No.' 

Draco finally pushed all that pesky fabric down to Harry's knees, and stared hungrily, _disbelievingly_ at the vision in front of him.

'Ever wanted to?' 

Harry huffed, arms crossed like he was annoyed, which really just clashed with how vulnerable his lower half was, all bare and flushed and _wanting_ for Draco. 

'No, I'm eighteen and I've never wanted a blowjob, Malfoy.' 

'Well,' Draco smirked, and leaned down just a bit, enough to kiss the tip of Harry's cock, to coax a surprised moan, 'I figured they'd be very impure thoughts, for someone as saintly as the Boy Who Lived.' 

'Oh, you're a fucking arsehole, Malfoy,' Harry said, but the angry tone was undercut by a laugh, then a downright sinful sound as Draco took his dick further in his mouth. 

It was heaven, sucking Harry off. It was the heady, hysterical feeling of having accomplished a lifelong fantasy: he'd wanted it for so long, and imagined it, shaded and choreographed it in his mind, when he saw Harry all pink and panting after a Quidditch game, eyes shining with adrenaline, or when he'd catch him studying in the library with the most utterly bored look on his face, and find himself barely resisting the urge to crawl under the damn table and give him the distraction he was so obviously hoping for, or when he came down to the Great Hall in the morning with his eyes half-squinted, his hair untidy and his tie hanging from his shoulders, and Draco wanted more than anything to take him back to bed… It was so much of what he'd dreamt of, but warmer, softer, _real_ \- Harry's hardness slid along his lips so nicely, a hot, solid weight on his tongue, salted and leaking, and his pale, jutted hips were already shaking, but he kept himself still against the cold tiles, letting Draco do as he wished, bob his head up and down and swirl his tongue over the slit and set up a lazy rhythm while he bit off desperate moans. 

'Fuck, Malfoy,' Harry breathed, trying not to buck his hips and further the careful stimulation, 'Will you fucking- go faster, will you?' 

Draco sent him an unimpressed look and slowly, deliberately withdrew his lips. Harry's dick did a little desperate twitch, and Draco had the most undignified thought of just swallowing it whole again. 

'Be patient, Potter,' he drawled, though he was sneaking one hand down to palm his own straining erection. 'We're going to make it last, remember?' 

And just to tease - because it was impossible not to, when Harry was so pink and wanting and vulnerable before him - he ran his tongue down the vein. Harry shivered with a frustrated sound, flattening his hands against the tiles as if to control himself. 

'I don't think-' another groan as Draco swallowed him midway, then withdrew, 'I don't think the point of this is to make it _last_ , Malfoy.' 

He hadn't said it in an unpleasant tone, but Draco had the frightening thought that perhaps Harry just wanted to hurry it up - that the drinking had made him aroused, and Draco had been the first warm body to cross his field of vision. He thought that, then primly discarded it, not because it was a silly thought, but because it didn't matter even if it was _true_ : he'd take what he could have, even if that meant a drunken, impulsive quickie never to be spoken of again. 

So he wrapped his fingers firmly around the root of Harry's dick, maybe a bit too harsh - forceful, because he couldn't help but feel illogically possessive -, slackened his jaw and set out to be the best damn hookup Harry could have dreamt of. 

'I don't know what you and Weasley were into, Potter, but I assure you that it's _much_ better if it lasts,' he raised an eyebrow, challenging Potter to argue, but he only stared in silent frustration, _trusting_. He rewarded it with a small, perhaps overly sweet kiss on the dip of his hip bone. 'Good. Now, put your hands on my bloody hair, and let me do this, yes?' 

Harry nodded, and Draco drew a smug smile as he opened up to take in Harry's dick again, deeper than before, hollowing his cheeks for that extra bit of suction, just to hear Harry's lovely moan. His hands, as Draco had instructed, found their way to platinum strands and twisted into them, steadying Draco's head with a slight sting. Draco let out a pleased hum around Harry that made his bony hips jump. 

'I didn't think anyone was allowed to touch your hair,' Harry said with a disbelieving, breathless laugh. He was squirming against the cold tiles, and when Draco looked up at him he'd forgotten the goddamn _glitter_ , and it was the hottest sight he'd ever seen. 

Draco bobbed a few more times before he eased out. The most obscene string of saliva dangled between the tip of Harry's cock and his own lip. 

'Not exactly. You see, Potter, unlike yours my hair is actually possible to style back, even if you fuck it up,' his voice was scratched up, rough and noticeably lower from arousal. He stroked Harry teasingly with the smooth slide of his own spit. 'Besides, this seems like a great exception, wouldn't you say?' 

'It would be, if you quit stopping all the time,' Harry said. It came out like a whine, and Draco found it hopelessly endearing, and he really wanted to litter Harry's hips and thighs with kisses, but he didn't know if that's what _Harry_ wanted him to do. 

'Then bloody shut up,' he retorted with a smirk before engulfing him in warmth again, holding his hips against the wall both for the pleasure of seeing Harry pinned down and to keep himself from touching his erection, lest he come in his jeans. 

'Merlin, Malfoy,' Harry moaned, his head hitting the wall, his throat convulsing so prettily from the angle Draco was seeing him.

Draco didn't have much practice, but he definitely had the motivation. It was Harry's first blowjob and he was going to get it _perfect_ \- and though he was drunk, on his knees in a filthy bathroom, he was as focused as during those bloody incomprehensible Magic History exams, because Harry _deserved_ a life composed of perfect first times. Maybe every other first time would belong to someone other than Draco: the morning would come, and Harry would be properly hungover and sensible, and tell him to forget the whole thing, and keep nothing more of this drunken memory except for a newfound confidence - because he'd had Draco Malfoy on his knees, swallowing around his dick - that he'd use to charm a string of girls who'd be more than willing to fill in for Draco in all the next first times. This one, however, belonged exclusively to Draco, and Draco was going to make it unforgettable. He was going to make it so all those flimsy girls could slobber over Harry's cock and Harry would only think of him, on his knees, taking him to the root in the bathroom of the Three Broomsticks.

He worked Harry up to a frenzied state, feeling him tighten and tense against him, trying so hard to restrain himself from thrusting into Draco's mouth. Fucking _considerate_ , even in this ridiculous situation; bloody perfect as he let Draco control the rhythm, intoxicating in the myriad of little sounds he let out: from ragged breaths to groans and the most precious high-pitched moans, and the occasional slip of a 'Malfoy' that sounded so sweet to Draco's ears.

He could almost pretend, when Harry said his name, that they were doing this somewhere sober and planned and - because Draco truly was pathetic - _domestic_. Not that he didn't love the sight of glorious Potter writhing between graffitied walls; he just wanted it to mean more. He wanted to be able to do it, and to tuck Harry back into his jeans afterwards, to kiss him warmly, to get back to Harry's friends' table and sit there with his arm around him, Harry's official, stupidly smitten and bloody _proud_ boyfriend.

It drove him crazy, this line of thought, and so, when Harry was seizing up, so near the edge, he withdrew, huffing a rough laugh as Harry's hands immediately twisted in his hair. 

'What the fuck?' Harry said, all desperate, all broken, incredibly beautiful. 

'Merlin, Potter, calm down, would you?' Draco said, overly casual, just to spite, 'I'm making you come, obviously. On a condition,' he forced himself to meet Potter's frustrated eyes, to keep his voice levelled as he spoke, 'Keep saying my name, yes? Scream it, Potter.' 

Harry's nod was immediate. 'Yeah, 'course. Just keep going, Malfoy, please.' 

It made Draco preen, the response, and he hungrily swallowed Harry's aching, denied cock again. There was something about the _promptness_ of Harry's words: "of course", like he had no objection to calling out Malfoy's name, like he wasn't ashamed or repulsed, that made Draco melt. He never thought he'd get to _have_ this. 

He slackened his jaw even more, burying his nose in Harry's taut skin, feeling him twitch deep down his throat. He'd relented on his slow rhythm now, figuring Harry deserved to actually come after being so teased. He bobbed his head with purpose, willing his muscles to relax so he could keep as much of the length inside his mouth - and each time he swallowed around him in his insistent pace he was rewarded with Harry's sounds. 

'Malfoy, fuck, Malfoy,' Harry was saying, urgent, in a pitched tone. Complying, so unbelievably sweet, saying Malfoy's name like it was some kind of prayer, so genuine that Draco was absolutely certain he was pretending, but he didn't even care, because it sounded bloody wonderful. 

Harry bucked helplessly against Draco, chasing the orgasm he'd been denied, that had left his eyes red and his entire body trembling. Draco pressed his hips further onto the wall, hoping his fingers would dig little bruises over the pelvic bone, something purple and red Harry could remember him by. It was difficult, however, to keep Harry relatively still - Draco had sped up his rhythm even more, turning it into something filthy and loud with the sounds of saliva, and Harry was thrashing, biting his lip, fingers twisted viciously in Draco's hair like he was half-decided to pull him off and escape the overwhelming stimulation. 

'I'm fucking _close_ \- Malfoy,' Harry gasped, hips straining against Draco's unforgiving hip, 'Don't you- don't you fucking dare stop again.' 

Draco wanted to laugh; it came out a hum around Harry's cock. He was tempted to really do stop. Keeping Harry on the edge a little longer, pink in the most lovely shade of desperation, was ridiculously appealing. Besides, if this was the only time Draco got to have this, he certainly wanted to make it last. But he was too taken by his own arousal, and any shred of patience had been overruled by the primitive, obscene wish of seeing Harry fall apart. 

He withdrew just a little, to get a good intake of breath - and because he really did love to tease, and the little panicked stutter in Harry's breath was bloody precious - before swallowing him as far as he could, working him there, dangerously close to gagging and blurry-eyed with tears. 

He was pretty sure Harry Potter was the only person that could make him indifferent to how undignified he looked. 

_'Merlin,'_ Harry groaned, and he was tensing again, his muscles trembling under Draco's hands, 'Fuck, Malfoy, I'm gonna- Malfoy, _Malfoy_!' 

He screamed, he actually screamed like Draco had told him to, because he was just fucking _perfect_ , and Draco was irremediably ruined now. Harry was coming hot and wet down his throat, twitching and convulsing and _screaming_ his name, loud and unashamed like he didn't care who heard. 

It was bloody beautiful. Draco swallowed every drop. 

Harry was slow to come down, shaking and panting and wobbling a bit unsteady on his feet. Draco, feeling dizzy himself, though for an entirely different reason, kept him supported by his hips, and busied himself taking long, deep intakes of breath. With spit slick lips, tasting deliciously salted from Harry's come, he pressed a myriad of hazy kisses on Harry's quivering thighs. He knew he was being unbearably sentimental, but he had just made Harry come, after all, so he hardly thought Harry would have the heart to tell him to stop.

'Alcohol and sex do _not_ work,' Harry said after the brief, blissful silence. He chuckled, an erratic, disbelieving little thing, and his hands finally slipped from Draco's hair to run through his own. 'I don't know if I can walk.' 

It made Draco feel absurdly proud. He nuzzled absently at the soft flesh of Harry's leg, riding a high of his own - he couldn't believe he'd made Harry come, that Harry was sated and boneless because of him. 

'That good, Potter?' he smirked. His voice was ragged. 

'Are you fishing for compliments?' Harry raised an eyebrow, his lips tweaking up. His eyes were twinkling, tired and glazed under the glitter. 

'I bloody well deserve them,' Draco huffed; decadently, he pressed another kiss to Harry's skin. He wondered if Harry could feel them, if he minded, if he _liked_ them. 'I did just have your cock down my throat,' 

'Yeah, I recall,' Harry snorted. 'It was…' 

Draco raised his brows expectantly. 

'The best you ever had?' 

'Oh, fuck off,' Harry said, but he was laughing, a giddy little sound. Draco had almost forgotten they were drunk - had almost let himself believe Harry was doing this sober, simply because he _wanted_ to.

He stood, though reluctantly. It made his erection shift uncomfortable and neglected in the confines of his clothes, and he felt unbearably awkward, not knowing what to do, how close he could stand, if he was still allowed to kiss Harry.

'You know, technically, it has to be the best,' he drawled, trying to ignore how unbalanced he felt. 

'Are you going to be all smug about it?' 

'Well,' Draco leered. He was very desperately trying to will away his arousal, 'I did give the Saviour of the Wizardry World the best blowjob of his life.' 

'Yes, but you are competing against no one,' Harry said, amused and unimpressed - and then, because he truly was the Gryffindor of the two of them, all unashamed impulse and unbridled bravery, he pulled Draco closer by the open edges of his shirt and kissed him again, nibbling lazily at his bottom lip. 

'Are you tasting yourself on me, Potter?' Draco asked, cursing the obvious wantonness in his tone. He felt Harry's smile against his mouth.

'Not on purpose,' he licked his lips, looking devious, 'It tastes bloody awful, I don't know why you put up with it.' 

Draco smirked, 'You'll get it when you try it.'

'I could try now,' Harry murmured, looking up at Draco through his lashes, so _bloody_ lovely, and his fingers went to cup Draco's hardness, 'Though I'll probably be shit at it.'

'I'll teach you,' Draco said, embarrassingly eager.

'Harry! Mate, will you quit it with your bloody makeup already, I wanna go- Harry?' 

It was Finnigan's voice, all drunk and friendly, and Draco had never hated that prick more in his entire life. 

He looked into Harry's eyes, which were wide with surprise and a sort of carefree amusement Draco couldn't even hope to reciprocate. He wanted to show him in some way that they should stay quiet, hide in the fucking stall until Finnigan's unbelievably short attention span burnt out and he went looking for another drink, and then carry on with what they were doing - every way to do that, however, seemed so saccharine, so hopelessly telling, and why would Harry even agree and choose him over his friends? Over Finnigan, who was all charm and open arms, the twat… a soulful, simple Gryffindor who'd be more than happy to suck Harry's cock just like Draco had? 

He took a deep breath, clenched his teeth until it hurt, a nicely grounding pain, and set out on quickly doing Harry's underwear and jeans up. He wouldn't beg Harry to stay only to see him leave. He'd take care of him, tuck him back in, straighten his clothes - because the Harry inside that stall was still his at least - and then let him go out and forget him. 

Harry seemed to understand. He gave a small apologetic smile, bit off a broken sound when Draco gently - and with overly lingering fingers - placed his softened cock back inside his underwear, and raised his voice:

'I'm in here, mate, wait a fucking moment.' 

He buckled his belt himself while Draco helped adjust his shirt into some sorry echo of appropriate. 

'Well, hurry up, doll, I've been looking everywhere for you.' 

Doll. Draco would have guessed 'sweetheart' would be more Harry's type; would have put money - thought about it often enough - that he'd shy away from being called 'baby' but still blush so prettily. But apparently he liked 'doll', if Finnigan called him that - and he _let_ Finnigan call him that, because he didn't even slightly start at the name, which meant he'd surely heard it before. 

He had half a thought to be bitter about it, but then Harry was pressing down the flush for the sake of lame pretense, and kissing Draco quickly under the sound of running water before opening the door slightly and slipping through, and Draco could only think he was in love and leave it at that. 

He stepped back gingerly so Finnigan couldn’t see him. Outside, there was laughter. 

‘Harry, mate, you’re a wreck.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Harry prolonged the word. Draco wondered if Seamus would be able to hear the hint of nervousness in it. ‘You know how I get when I drink too much.’

‘You hardly get like _that_ ,’ Finnigan sniggered. He was being wonderfully effective at killing Draco’s erection, all harsh consonants and high pitchings of his voice, none of Harry’s soft, tilting snark - and he could see, through the sliver between the door and the stall, Harry’s back as he moved towards the sink and began washing his hands; his shirt was creased, and Draco had done that, because he’d blown him, he’d blown Harry fucking Potter and he would have bloody _reciprocated_ if it wasn’t for the irish git. 

‘That’s ‘cause I don’t drink absinthe everyday.’

‘Bloody absinthe or not, you’re coming dancing.’ 

‘Are my eyes okay?’ 

Draco suppressed a fond laugh. That fucking glitter truly was Harry’s pride and joy. 

‘Perfect, doll, will you be done with it already?’ 

_Doll_ again: did Finnigan call him that when they were alone? He’d never called him that before, when they were surrounded by friends - Draco had never _heard_ that. Was it that sort of thing one evasively calls a dynamic, when they don’t want to look too deep? Was it flirting? Was it friendly? Finnigan _liked_ Harry, which Draco couldn’t even hate him for, because Harry was frustratingly attractive and a brilliant Quidditch player and a better person and the only bloody human whose silences were _interesting_ ; but Harry liked him _back_ , had to, because he kept letting him call him ‘doll’, and, well, Draco couldn’t hate him for that either, could he? Because Harry could like whomever he wanted; he’d never told Draco he liked him - he’d told him, moreover, that he’d only wanted to kiss him since he’d seen him come out of that bloody stall. Draco was nothing more than a twenty minutes wondering, so he couldn’t resent Harry; could only, at most, judge him for an obvious lack of self-respect, because he should bloody know he deserved better than Finnigan. 

Then again, Draco hadn’t been much concerned about Harry’s self-respect when he was blowing him in the stall. 

‘Give me a minute, you go on ahead.’ 

‘If I leave you alone your drunken ass is going to stay here for half an hour.’

‘I look like shit, Seamus.’ 

‘Honestly, you look like you’ve just shagged. It’s a good look on you.’ 

Yes, it was, because Draco had devotedly designed it - for _himself_ to see. 

‘Well, you _know_ that hasn’t happened.’ 

‘Of course I do,’ Finnigan snorted, ‘Now bloody get over here, Miss Virginity, let’s dance.’ 

Harry laughed - he didn’t sound nervous anymore, he’d most likely forgotten Draco was even there. There were footsteps, then the swing of a door, a thud, silence. 

Draco let himself breathe out fully for the first time since Finnigan had shown up. His erection had now completely deflated. He was tired, and frustrated, and bitter with irrational jealousy, and really wishing Finnigan had agreed when Harry had asked him to give him a minute alone, because then, maybe, if Draco let himself hope, Harry would have snuck some sort of goodbye kiss before he’d left. 

Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe he really just wanted to fix up his bloody glitter. 

He buttoned up his shirt. The situation figured to him as this: everyone else, according to what Harry had told him, thought he’d felt ill and left. A nice, tight lie courtesy of Hermione Granger, who, he now remembered with a sudden weight in his throat, was aware of Draco’s feelings for Harry. He was still, therefore, in the same despairing hole from before; only now, if - when - Hermione told Harry, Harry would be able to look back at Draco on his _knees_ , looking up so fucking lovingly - he knew he had, it wasn’t like he was able to stop it when Harry was looking like _that_ -, not to mention every other pathetic clue he’d already neatly laid out in front of him, like he wanted to get caught, from the impulsive treacle tarts to his coat to the veritaserum game, and truly, finally realize just how oblivious he’d always been, and how evident it was that Draco loved him. 

At least he had this memory. Yes, everything else might come down, but there were no strings to drag this surreal moment into darkness. It would stay untethered to reality, in his mind to cherish. 

It wasn’t like it’d even disturbed his earlier plan. He could still leave quietly, and stay away from Potter, and make himself return to that numb state that loved but didn’t hope. It was still the best option. The universe had simply been nice for once since it’d come to be, and given Draco one little thing to treasure. 

He left the stall, composed himself in front of the mirror, walked out of the bathroom. Resolutely stuck to the walls, shadowed and unseen. He didn’t dare stare at the moving bodies wriggling like sardines in the center of the pub. 

It was cold in the street. He hadn’t even bothered to get his coat back. He headed to Honeydukes, still planning on using the secret passage, and as he cut through the frozen night, enveloped in dark air, crushed by a sky of oppressive black, there creeped upon him the most frightened little thing, small and aching to be loved and sure it would never be; and this pulse of light went as quickly as it had come, and left behind something sour and resigned.

He’d stared at the black sky for too long, he figured. It had reminded him that the universe wasn’t ever really good - and this memory it had allowed him was not a gift but a curse, for he didn’t know if he could bear it if the next time he looked at Harry he found staring back at him eyes filled with disgust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	9. A Hungover Quidditch Game

‘Why’d you light the bloody candles?’ 

‘It’s eight in the morning, Draco.’ 

‘It’s _Saturday_.’ 

‘There’s practice,’ Goyle said, lighting the fireplace with a flick of his wand. Draco groaned. Sometimes he wholeheartedly missed the days when he had lackeys. 

‘I’m not going,’ he murmured, curling in on himself on the plush sofa. He’d never quite made it to the dormitories; he’d taken a seat in the common room with the innocent intention of waiting it out until his head stopped spinning, but his muscles had been too eager and sitting had turned into laying. He’d slept there for the rest of the night, his clothes creasing as he tossed and turned and his tongue still tasting of Harry’s come. 

‘Our darling Draco is hungover, Greg,’ tittered Blaise, slim figure sliding so elegantly through the cold room. He lifted Draco’s legs and deposited them in his lap as he sat down, knotting his tie. 

‘Sod off, Zabini. How did you know?’ 

‘Do you think you’re being subtle? In any sense, Pike told me in the dorm.’ 

‘How does _Pike_ know?’ 

‘What do you mean, ‘how does he know’? He was with you.’ 

Draco lifted the arm he’d been resting over his eyes, shooting Blaise an unimpressed look. 

‘He bloody wasn’t.’ 

Goyle, who’d taken a seat at the armchair closest to the blooming flames, looked up with a frown. Blaise’s smile was slow and accusatory. 

‘Who were you with then, that Pike felt he had to cover for you?’ 

‘You know, I do have other friends besides you twats.’

‘You don’t _actually_ , Draco.’

‘Shut up, Goyle.’ 

He really wasn’t in the disposition for inquiries. His head was cracking, dry like a prune, yet overflowing, overstuffed, bursting with crumpled tissues and old liquor - a very cramped desert, it seemed, loud though there was no sound, and aching for darkness. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted Saturday banished by unconsciousness; Sunday, maybe, as well. He could stand on Monday, he was fairly sure. By Tuesday he was positive he’d be able to think. 

‘Who were you with?’ Blaise repeated. His long fingers wrapped tightly around Draco’s knee. Draco huffed. 

‘You really are dreadful at intimidation, Zabini. No wonder Bellatrix never taught you how to torture.’ 

From the armchair came the low rumble of Goyle’s laugh. He was bouncing his knee up and down, foot skidding on the floorboards with a persistent, infuriating squeak; all pent up energy, like he always was before Quidditch practices. Were Draco capable of it, he would have thrown him one of the silver laced pillows. 

Blaise’s demeanour, on the other side, didn’t waver - never did, the power of the vain. He simply twitched his lips into an amused smile, tone a sardonic singsong when he mused:

‘If only we were all as heartless as the Malfoys.’ 

Draco smirked, slow and tired, and laid his arm back over his eyes.

‘Impossible.’ 

‘Are we going then, chaps?’ came a honeyed voice. Harper was leaning against the stone archway leading to the dormitories. 

‘Seems like you’re playing lead today, Harper,’ said Goyle. 

Harper arched a brow, inching closer to the sofa where Draco was still resolutely wishing that everyone would leave and let him return to sleep. 

‘What happened to you?’ 

‘He’s too much of a flower to play hungover.’ 

Draco dug his heel sharply into Blaise’s lean thigh. ‘Unless you want me dead, you’ll be glad I’m choosing not to play. I’m not going to practice, Harper; you’re lead seeker.’ 

‘You have to _go_ even if you’re not playing. We’re doing game strategy,’ Harper whined.

‘So? Draw me a fucking picture and I’ll catch up.’ 

‘Harper’s right, you have to go,’ insisted Goyle. 

‘You know what they say, Draco - there’s no better cure for a hangover than some fresh air,’ drawled Blaise, pushing Draco’s legs off his lap and hoisting him up by his arm. Draco wavered a bit, head unstable, too heavy, slipping off his neck. Once he recovered his sight, he glared. 

‘I bloody hate you.’ 

Between Blaise’s scornful comments and Goyle’s persistent tugs at his wrist, they managed to get him into some fresh clothes and to the Great Hall for breakfast. At such an early hour there weren’t many students around, and he was able to eat in relative peace. 

He looked around, but saw no one from Harry’s group.

After enough coffee, he was persuaded into going down to the Quidditch field. It didn’t even figure that bad a plan - he could lay in the bleachers, stare at the slow shifting grey clouds and try to fall back asleep. Maybe it’d start raining over him. Or snowing. Little flakes melting on his overheated skin. He could do with some snow. 

It was when he was trailing down the narrow path of frosted grass and wet stone at the curve that showed the first glimpse of the field that he noticed a few too many broomsticks, an unusual amount of silhouettes scattered along the seats. 

‘It’s Slytherin practice, isn’t it, Goyle?’ 

Goyle, who was working on the straps of his chest gear, hummed. ‘Mock game with Gryffindor.’ 

‘You’re bloody kidding me.’ 

‘What? You’re not even playing.’ 

Draco walked weary into the playing grounds. While the Slytherin uniforms blended into the dark foliage with their somber greens, the scarlet robes were exuberant spots restless around the area: Alicia Spinnet was whirling low circles in her broom; Dean Thomas was sitting in the wet grass, chin digging into his arm and looking about as hungover as Draco felt; the inescapable Ginny Weasley was surveying the sky with that undeniably charming - and Draco hated her for it - twinkle of competitiveness in her eye; and, next to the open box at the center of the grounds, staring at an agitated Bludger, were Ron and Harry, clad in their uniforms, though it fit haphazard on them, like they’d forgotten how to wear it. 

He stopped at the edge of the circle. It wasn’t the time for this; Draco wasn’t _able_ to do this. Sober and sharp he could do it, could face Harry, could pretend not to know how his lips - how his cock - tasted; hungover, on the other hand, mouth dry and eyes teary, hair unstyled, head pounding, too raw to conjure spite or indifference, awfully human, in short, and too honest in his discomfort, he’d crumble under Harry’s gaze

‘Well? Go on, mate, bleachers, or you’ll get in the way,’ said Harper, ushering him away with a dismissive hand. 

Keeping his gaze on the short grass, Draco walked briskly to the stands. There stood the problem that there were people there, in the seats with him, indistinct faces he couldn’t bear to try and recognize, who could possibly be Harry’s friends, though Draco doubted any hungover soul would ever wake early to _watch_ a game, and Draco really rathered being alone. He sat in the front row, slumping into the seat, folded meek and unobtrusive to discourage any God-forbidden _friendliness_ , gaze stubborn on his own team. 

Not that it lasted long. Being hungover did terrible things to decisiveness - love more so, and Draco’s eyes were helpless to orbit towards Harry again and again. He didn’t even seem bothered, laughing with Ron, no doubt sharing one of those ridiculous jokes Draco had always wished to tease him about, movements lazy and head held high, like he hadn’t been incredibly wasted less than six hours ago. 

Perhaps he hadn’t drunk that much. That would have been a good thing, wouldn’t it? Perhaps he hadn’t been too bad off, and he’d kissed Draco with some shred of his faculties still in place, and he didn’t regret it. It wasn’t like he’d stayed in bed to wallow with shame at letting _Malfoy_ put his lips on him - and _fuck_ , Draco had been too drunk, too obvious, he remembered the overly sweet, downright worshipping kisses he’d pressed to the hollows of Harry’s hips. But even if Potter was ashamed, he wouldn’t wallow. That wasn’t his style. For all Draco knew, he regretted every moment of it, as one does a regular drunken mistake, one of those painfully embarrassing stories that age into hilarious, if somewhat self-deprecating dinner party anecdotes, and he hadn’t given it another thought. 

And Draco could wish, could hope Harry had kissed him because he’d wanted to, not because that wretched green thing, what was it called again?, had been poisoning his mind, but his own headache told him the truth: if Draco was like this, on the verge of dissolving right into the floorboards of the bleachers, and Harry had drunk more than him, then there was no way Harry could be _fine_. Not even the bloody Boy Who Lived had that high an alcohol tolerance. He’d kissed Draco drunkenly, and he _had_ to be hungover now, absolutely had to, every single basic law of biology, chemistry and physiology dictated it, so what on actual earth was he doing in his uniform, ready to play Quidditch, a bloody seeker about to zoom hundreds of feet into the air in search of a microscopic fleck of hyperactive gold, that irresponsible, reckless, _hungover_ adrenaline junky with the natural eyesight of a mole? He was going to bloody topple off his broom and die, and honestly, after such a stupid decision, he _deserved_ it - but he couldn’t die, only because Draco had been sensible enough to forfeit the game, which meant _Draco_ didn’t deserve to die, and Draco, if Harry died, would be as good as dead. 

He was watching the teams warm up, and trying to understand how was it that the Gryffindors, almost all of them hungover, were _standing_ , when he heard a set of footsteps approach. He turned - to his left, walking towards him, were Hermione, Finnigan and Longbottom.

‘Morning, mate, how are you holding up?’ said Neville. His eyes were squinting compulsively, even in the tame winter sunlight. The trio sprawled in the seats next to Draco, all with their sighs of discomfort 

‘Not worse than you three, by the looks of it,’ Draco answered. He frowned, taking in their tired features, shadowed dark and concave under their eyes, lips chapped and noses red. 'Why didn't you stay in bed?' 

They formed a small wave as they shrugged. Below them, in the pitch, the players were doing half-hearted lunges. 

'They made us promise we'd be here. Said it was only fair that we all suffered,' Hermione explained, a huff of annoyance in the end. Draco, on his part, could barely stand to look at her without remembering that little corner in the pub, the thoughtless words that had come out of his mouth, Hermione's expression when she'd _realized_. 

Idly, he wondered if Leanne was somewhere in the stands to support Potter. He'd nearly forgotten about her. 

It made him feel twistedly proud, that she and her perfectly decent but unremarkable mouth hadn't been the first to give Harry a blowjob.

'Not that we mind,' Finnigan's face broke into a lopsided smile, and he slipped down until he was half laying, his head propped on the back of the seat. 'Gotta cheer for the team, after all.' 

'Well,' Draco settled lower on his own seat, resting his hands over his slowly rising chest. 'If you don't mind me, I'll be here, cheering for _my_ team.' 

Neville laughed, a tired, gravelly sound. While the teams on the field finished their warm ups, the four of them settled into a silence that wasn't too uncomfortable, their shared hangovers binding them in quiet solidarity. Draco, of course, ought to feel the most inadequate - the others huffed murmured jokes between them, small casual remarks, half asleep in the cold morning air. Draco might have joined in, but _Hermione_ was there, Hermione who knew his secret and held it brazenly in the palm of her hand, and Draco couldn't begin to feel relaxed with her around. He looked at her, or heard her smooth tone over the gusts of wind, and fear surfaced inside him that she'd told someone, told Harry, told the entire school. 

Still, it wasn't too unpleasant. He mused that perhaps the hangover was dulling his panic, and he was beginning to believe he could get through the practice peacefully when the teams started mounting their brooms for a few flights before the game, and he saw Harry and Ron pushing each other as they flew at a low height - like bloody kindergarteners, for fuck's sake, did they not care about their well-being at all? - and something urgent and fearful grew inside him. 

'Are they really going to play?' he asked, trying to keep his tone detached. 

‘Of course they are. They’re bloody daft,’ Hermione huffed. Draco would have felt a pang of sympathy for her, if he wasn’t otherwise concerned - she really was the reason those nitwits had survived long enough to face the war. 

‘Ginny didn’t drink too much,’ Neville countered, shyly defensive. 

‘Yes…’ Draco conceded, trying to keep the annoyance out of his tone. It was significantly difficult, however, when, in the distance, floating now at the height of the stands, Harry and Ron were wobbling in their broomsticks. ‘The other ones did, though, didn’t they? They were very drunk.’ 

‘They’ll bounce back,’ Finnigan said, chuckling. Draco _hated_ that prick.

‘One hardly bounces back from falling sixty feet.’ 

Neville shifted in his seat. ‘Do you really think they’ll fall?’

‘Well, _obviously_.’

The teams settled onto the field again. They seemed to be preparing for the start the game. 

‘Granger. You’re not going to _actually_ let them do this, are you?’ 

Hermione bit her lip, staring at the scarlet and green blunders walking around below. Her hair, caught in the wind, was whipping her face.

‘You know how they are, Draco. I couldn’t talk them out of it.’ 

Draco groaned. He would have liked to be subtle - not to mention names, specially with Hermione there to know the strain in his voice for what it was -, but everyone was being too fucking dense, slow-minded and so naively trusting, like the friends they’d allowed to play weren’t known for their recklessness, like they hadn’t been bloody sorted into a House that _condoned_ impulsivity, that saw it as a fucking point of honour; like they weren’t there dangling from their broomsticks and laughing over it, like they didn’t see their life as currency for fun, like they hadn’t gone through their entire childhood thinking themselves invincible, all because when he was a bloody baby he'd… Reckless, they were - all of them, and they shouldn’t be trusted on matters of _safety_. 

‘Potter, though. He could barely stand last night. From what I recall.’ 

Finnigan nodded, finally starting to frown. ‘Yeah, he was pretty far off.’ 

‘So, we should go over there and tell him not to play.’ 

Hermione sighed. ‘He won’t listen to us. Neither will Ron.’ 

‘I don’t give a shit about Weasley,’ Draco snapped, ‘He’s _your_ fucking boyfriend.’ 

'Is Harry yours then, mate?’ bit back Finnigan. Draco figured he shouldn’t have yelled. He took a deep breath, trying to regain some sense of calm and card away his embarrassment.

‘Potter drank more than Weasley, is what I mean. And he’s a bloody idiot, he’ll fling himself right off his broom.’ 

‘They’ll be careful, Malfoy. It’s a friendly game.’ Hermione insisted. Softer, she added, ‘Harry was feeling much better this morning.’ 

Draco looked away, clenching his jaw. Really, he ought to just give up - why should he bother to say anything? Why pretend to give a damn about any of those airheaded Gryffindors when he very specifically only cared about one? Why argue against these hungover, apathetic excuses for friends, who were obviously content laying down in their golden and red naivety and hoping for the best? They were clearly fine with Harry hurting himself - which he fucking would, he wasn’t any Quidditch prodigy, he couldn’t fly in his state. Bloody Potter deserved to break an arm anyway: the fact that his life belonged to him didn’t mean he got to ruin it - other people _cared_ for it. Other people cared for _him_. It was just fucking selfish to go out into the field, really. Harry was a selfish fucking person, and Draco was tired, hungover and cold, and he’d gone there to focus on the _Slytherin_ team, so Potter could dive off his bloody broom and break every bone in his body for all Draco cared. He’d hardly be watching. 

‘You three are bloody wretched friends, you know that?’ he snapped, and stood up. His head pounded; the field in front of him swayed from side to the side. 

‘Draco, where’re you going?’ asked Neville. 

‘I’m going to convince the bloody tosser not to kill himself,’ he yelled out, already going down the steps. 

The wind hissed in his ears, twisting the short strands of hair on his forehead. His sight was still adjusting, his feet stunted and slow, but he made it to the pitch all the same.

Harry was giggling with the two young Weasleys. Draco clung to his frustration, buried his panic, and called out:

‘Oy, Potter!’ 

He turned; his smile, Draco was infinitely relieved to see, didn’t disappear, simply stuttering with surprise. Ginny and Ron both frowned as Draco neared their little circle. 

‘Would any of you idiots care to explain what you’re doing down here?’

‘Well, given as we have broomsticks and everything, I’d wager we’re here to sweep the pitch,’ Ron said. Harry laughed - and that little sound, heard from up close now, was so telling in its insomniac hysteria. Draco pointedly ignored Ron, who was sniggering, and focused on him. 

‘You’re going to kill yourself.’ 

Ginny rolled her eyes. ‘Fuck off, Malfoy.’ 

‘I’m sorry, were you under the impression I was talking to you?’ 

‘Were you under the impression we _want you_ to talk to us?’ she retorted, a cold sharpness in her stance, ‘This is none of your business, Malfoy. We’ve done this before, and we were fine.’ 

‘Is that your grandiose argument, then? You didn’t die once, ergo you can _never_ die?’ Figures you’d all be into Quidditch - all brawn and no brain,’ Draco said, all of him tense, spying from the corner of his eye as Harry’s joyful demeanour crumbled. Draco hated it, that he was playing the bad guy, the one who broke the mood, but it wasn’t like he had a choice, did he? He was there to help, and he’d been willing to play perfectly nice - or as nice as he could be, in his current state - when the bloody Weasleys, lap dogs as they were, insufferably loud and inconveniently opinionated, had started hounding. 

Ron had gone red in the face.

‘Bloody hell, mate what’s your problem?’ 

‘Malfoy, just… Thanks, yeah? But we’re fine,’ Harry spoke at last. He’d probably meant it to be appeasing, but to Draco it just sounded like a dismissal, and his blood boiled.

‘You’re fucking daft is what you are. You can’t even walk in a straight line, how do you plan to fly?’

Ron grumbled. ‘Grant you we won’t fly worse than you do.’ 

‘Proud of that one, are you, Weasley?’ Draco crossed his arms, kicking at the grass. His head was still aching, a stinging constriction between his eyes; around them, Slytherins and Gryffindors were shouting, exchanging brief words, starting to gather around for the start of the game in deafening noise. He focused on Harry again, urgency in his tone. ‘Sit this one out, Potter. For fuck’s sake, you know you should.’ 

But Harry didn’t seem to be listening. His gaze was raking over Draco worriedly. Just under his eyebrows there was still the slightest hint of unwashed glitter, sticking to the tender skin, and Draco had a disturbing flash of the bathroom stall, and jutted hips shaking, and Harry’s breathy tone as he’d whispered Draco’s name.

‘Do you feel alright, Malfoy? You look like you should sit down.’

‘For _Merlin's_ sake, will you stop caring about other people for once?’ he shouted. His sight swung, and in a blur he saw Ginny’s and Ron’s unimpressed expressions, and Harry, still uncaring, still regarding everyone else’s life as more _fragile_ than his, and he seethed. ‘You know what, have it your fucking way.’ He raised his voice, the wind snapping the collar of his coat up as he searched around the field. ‘Harper! Harper! Where’s- Whitby, tell Harper she’s benched. I’m playing.’ 

The news quickly went around the pitch with a bout of yelling that grated at Draco’s ears. 

‘Will you stop making a scene, Malfoy?’ Ginny sniped. ‘Harper’s already prepped.’ 

‘Oh, she’s your bloody opposition, quit wasting your breath,’ Draco dismissed. He did feel bad for Harper, but it wouldn’t do him good to back down now. A few feet away, he could see Crabb running to tell her about the change. 

‘You’re not playing,’ Harry huffed. 

Ron nodded. ‘Yeah, we know we can do it, Malfoy. You’ll fall down from a gust of wind.’ 

Draco didn’t even spare the ginger a glance, training his eyes, resolute and challenging, on Harry. He would have rathered his words had been enough, but, then again, why would Harry have listened to him? He hadn’t listened to Hermione. How foolish of Draco to think he bore any influence - oh, he’d kissed Harry, he’d blown him, he’d tasted him and held him and made him come, but it didn’t mean they were any _closer_ for it. It didn’t mean Harry would start caring about what he had to say. His words weren’t enough, but Draco still worried, and it was still dangerous, and he couldn’t just stand by and watch. So let the stubborn fool fly to his death - Draco would come along too.

‘Didn’t you hear what the Weaslette said? I can’t die.’ 

Harry’s eyes flashed darker, but it was Ron who spoke, ‘Don’t call her that, Malfoy.’ 

‘It’s fine,’ Ginny said, an edge to her tone. She shook her head, then smiled a bitter, tight-lipped smile. ‘I’m going to check on the team,' turning to Draco, a subtle threat in her gaze, she added, 'I hope you play, Malfoy.’ 

She walked away across the short grass. With a glare, Ron trailed after her.

Draco sighed. He was tired, his head _hurt_ ; he couldn’t summon the will to pretend he wasn’t bothered by Harry’s glint of disappointment.

‘I meant Ginny. Ginny. I know her name, Potter.’ 

‘You’re a fucking dick,’ Harry gritted out. ‘You shouldn’t play.’ 

‘Neither should you.’ 

Harry huffed. To their right, the teams were finally beginning to settle. Harper had stormed out, taking a seat in the stands. Draco was fully expecting a row with her - he quite deserved it. 

‘I’m going to play no matter what you do.’ 

‘Well, that settles it then, doesn’t it? I'll play as well.’ 

‘Malfoy, I fucking _swear_ -’ Harry’s voice was tight, like he was trying not to scream; frustrated, desperate, and Draco really hadn’t thought their first conversation after the previous night would be like this, but he was happy it was. Frustrating Harry was normal, safe - he’d thrived on it for years. ‘I’m fine, I’m a fucking good flier, and I’m less hungover than you are. You don’t even have your gear.’ 

Draco raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think you are. You drank a lot, Potter, I saw you,’ he said. He could still remember the flush of Harry’s cheeks, the slur of his words, the way he’d looked at Draco like… He swallowed. The air felt colder around him. There was a new gravity in his words when he murmured, ‘You were very drunk, weren’t you?’ 

Harry, as if he knew what Draco was thinking, looked away.

‘Yes,’ he answered after a pause, and it was clipped, reluctant, like he wanted to say more. In the end, however, the word hung alone in the wind. 

When the silence between them became unbearable, Draco managed to fake a laugh. What had he expected anyway? He’d _known_ Harry was drunk - that’s why he’d kissed him, why he’d let him blow him. That was it. A drunken mistake. 

‘Come on,’ he said softly, ‘If you insist on dying, I want to at least be watching from up close.’ 

They joined their teams. Draco summoned his broom and shedded his coat on the grass. Back with the others, Ron gave a surprised huff. 

‘Are you _actually_ going to play?’ 

Draco nodded. He wanted to laugh, something high and hysterical, something insane, because he knew it was: his sight still swayed from time to time, his head still pulsed, he was freezing in the thin shirt of his uniform, and he’d had the hardest time going up the Great Staircase without feeling nauseous. He couldn’t fly, he knew that - but he also knew Harry was feeling as poorly as he was. It was obvious in the way his head rested unstable on his neck, and his gaze flickered wildly from side to side, and his steps were slow and measured. He was faking it with smiles, but if anyone really looked, it was just under the surface. He’d hurt himself. He’d fall. If Draco played, if he was there, he could help. 

He looked at Harry, trying to ignore all the other people around them.

‘I won’t let you fall, Potter.’ 

He could hear Ron’s disbelieving laugh in the back of his mind, but all his focus was on the little soft twitch of Harry’s lips. Ron turned to Harry,

‘And you’re just going to let him be this stupid?’ 

Harry shrugged. His eyes were twinkling with something Draco couldn’t quite identify.

‘I won’t let him fall either.’

The words made something painful and warm curl around Draco's heart.

They clambered onto their brooms. A pregnant pause: Draco breathed in, shivering in the freezing wind, and tightened his grip on the slim wood of his broomstick. Then, the familiar high-pitched hiss of a whistle, instinctively riling every fiber of his body.

The teams lifted in the air. The game began. 

A rush of wind overcame him as he swooped up; the whirlwind around him dizzied him, and he flew unsteady, wavering through a frenzy of chasers hunting the Quaffle. Idly, he mused that he truly hadn’t considered the Bludger in his little impulsive fit of bravure - his senses were far too dulled to watch out for it. He’d end the match with his ribs through his kidneys. 

He struggled to situate himself in the field. Most of his teammates had gone higher by that point, the action zooming at lightning speed above his head. That treacherous bud of competition, ever lurking in his mind, urged him to meet them. He swerved to the left then, a slow slide through the stinging air, and found Harry a little way off, lips pressed in determination, dark strands of hair jumbled in his glasses. He was staring at Draco, but not really - somewhere farther, surveying the grounds.

It occurred to Draco, almost with surprise, that he was looking for the Snitch. 

Tired, hungover Harry Potter, who’d been tripping on the smooth field, laughing maniacally with his delinquent friends, all pretty and carefree and fucking infuriating in his persistent amusement - _that_ Harry was actually focusing on the game. 

He realized - with a violent pain flashing through his head and a growing urge to vomit - that he ought to start looking for the Snitch as well. 

He didn’t want to stray too much from Harry, however. A very inconvenient, irresistible urge to protect the idiot was about the only thing keeping his flight somewhat straight. The game, for all the adrenaline it dispersed into his blood, was practice. It didn’t count - his team would give him shit about it later, yes, and Goyle would most likely punch his arm with that brute strength of his, but it’d be mostly inconsequential; he’d like to catch the Snitch, if only because Harry’s eyes always got so lovely when they were alight, and fury was the brightest flame of all, but he wouldn’t die if he lost this time around. His priority was Harry.

As if on cue, as if very simply to scare Draco’s heart right out of him, Harry flashed up in an almost vertical line, scarlet robes unfurling around him like whips, all speed and energy and _danger_. 

Immediately, Draco followed, dodging the indistinct red blur that was Dean Thomas somewhat haphazardly. He had to lean his body too far to the side, and he dropped, still hanging to the broom, doing a complete spin before managing to get back up. It made his heart pound, and his breath come quick and ragged, and he didn’t even feel cold anymore, though he was the only one in his thin, black and white uniform amidst the blurs of thick, colourful fabric. He was going to fall. He was absolutely going to fall, because he was a fucking idiot and he’d drunk way too much the previous night - he’d been sucking Harry off in a filthy bathroom seven hours ago, for fuck’s sake - and he very simply _couldn't_ do this.

He remembered Harry’s words, then. The ones he’d said right before the game. The ones that still held his heart in a suffocating hold. The way he’d said them, like he meant it, like they’d both be swirling through the airs, both suffering, both trying not to fall, opposition, _enemies_ , searching for the pesky, cruel Snitch, but an idle thought would linger in each of them, and they’d glance at each other now and then, and they’d _help._

It made Draco stand a little straighter. It made him curve down and put some speed into his pursuit. It made him wonder, with a surge of thrill in his system, if maybe Harry was watching him as well. 

Of course, Harry kept zooming higher and higher, past two Beaters who were fighting for the Bludger, rising above most of the players. Draco sighed, leaned lower on his broomstick and flew up to meet him. 

‘Are you trying to prove something, Potter?’ he asked, yelling over the sharp wind. 

Harry smiled something wicked.

‘I’m just playing the game, Malfoy. What are you doing?’ 

Draco did his best to shrug. His tie - which Blaise had tied for him - was snapping loudly at his chest.

‘I don’t see the point in hurrying about. It’s not like you’ll catch the Snitch in your state.’ 

‘And you’re going to catch it yourself, are you?’ Harry’s tone was taunting. 

‘One of us has to, or the game’ll never end and those idiots will all kill each other,’ Draco remarked, tilting his head down, where the frenzy of Chasers and Beaters went on in a cacophony of screams and groans and sharp hisses as the brooms cut through the air. Weasley had missed the Quaffle at the hoops - ten points to Slytherin. 

‘Well, good luck with that,’ Harry snorted; then, with something amused twinkling in his eyes, ‘Oh, and watch out for Ginny. She really is cross.’ 

With a smooth swerve of his broomstick, he plunged down and forward, gliding away, to search the other side of the field. 

Draco wasted no time in following him, though his place was slower, more measured. Far, out the corner of his eye, he could see three silhouettes in the stands - Granger, Finnigan and Longbottom, still in the first row, now leaning against the railing, avidly following the game. 

Most likely hoping none of their friends fell. 

Harry was by the Hufflepuff tower, staring at the grass far below him. Behind him rose the dark, striking walls of Hogwarts.

‘Are you going to shadow me for the entire game, Malfoy?’ 

‘Just hoping you’ll save me the trouble of looking for the Snitch, Potter.’ 

Harry sent him a wry look. Something in Draco’s demeanour must have concerned him, because he asked:

‘Are you sure you’re alright?’

Draco rolled his eyes.

‘I never said I was alright. I said I didn’t want you to die.’ 

‘Yeah, okay,’ Harry laughed. Draco flew a little closer, so they were hovering in the air a feet from each other, still and intimate, isolated from the quick thrill of the game. ‘But you do know my team would have had my back, right?’

Draco tensed his lips, glancing up to the whirlwind of colour and adrenaline going on unbothered by them, uncaring, an impenetrable, uninterruptible force. He knew the feeling, the pull that turned life into the game and people into selfish, reckless _brutes_. How could Harry not see that? How could he possibly be so reckless with his own life as to go into the game with the flimsy promise that his friends would watch over him? 

‘Potter, your team’s composed of hungover nitwicks. That’s including you.’ 

Harry bristled. He lowered his gaze back to the ground, as if looking for the Snitch again. He looked a lot less friendly, and something in Draco went tight and panicked. 

‘Well, one more hungover nitwick won’t do me any good. It’s just bloody daft of you to play. You… you were very drunk too, weren’t you?’ 

Draco narrowed his eyes. He wondered - he _hoped_ , because surely he couldn’t be the only one obsessing over that night - that Harry meant more with that question. 

Carefully, he said, ‘Not too drunk.’ 

‘Oh, come on.’ 

He huffed, frustrated, and set his gaze determinedly on Harry, swallowing the bubbling of fear inside him.

‘I knew what I was doing. Did you?’ 

Harry’s eyes were defiant. ‘Of c- _Fuck_!’

The Bludger came out of nowhere, launching itself against Harry’s arm. He went clashing against the Hufflepuff Tower in a blur of scarlet, disappearing between the wooden beams. 

‘Potter!’ Draco yelled, rushing behind him. There was a cloud of dust and small wooden splinters; under the tower, inside the decrepit structure, it was dark. 

Harry was clutching his arm. His glasses had slipped, hanging off one ear, and he wasn’t even holding onto the broom, swinging perilously as his thighs clenched around it. Draco’s heart constricted - why hadn’t the bloody twat listened to him and sat the game out? 

In his mind surfaced the picture of them sitting in the stands, watching the haphazard game take place, Harry neatly tucked in the hollow of Draco’s arms, his head on his angulous shoulder while Draco, in turn, rested his own atop his ear, both tired and cracked-lipped and _safe_ , bleeding warmth into each other. He wanted to reach out and check Harry’s arm; he wanted to kiss his forehead and adjust his glasses; he wanted to be _more_ ; he wanted to talk about what the actual hell the other night had meant. 

‘What help you were,’ Harry said wryly, glaring at him. ‘I’d be lost if you weren’t here.’ 

He zoomed past him in a blur; Draco turned to see him return to the bustling game, his battered arm limply dangling by his side. 

The idiot was going to try to play without one arm. Not to prove anything, not to unnerve Draco, not to show off how brave he was - rather because he genuinely thought he could; because he lived off that impulse, because he was always, at any given moment, unbridled energy and foolish confidence, and he was honestly going to kill himself, and Draco fucking _hated_ Harry - never had there been a more exhausting person to love.

The match went on with a distinct lead by the Slytherin team. Weasley was doing a decent job at keeping the hoops, considering how drunk he’d been, but the Slytherin chasers were fit and fresh-minded, and he couldn’t keep up. Ginny - because the perfect little git’s entire role in life was to remind Draco of how inadequate and _inferior_ he was - carried the Gryffindor team on her shoulders. Dean Thomas was a comical mess of unpredictably outstretched limbs, and each Slytherin teammate seemed, in comparison, fit, sharp, and eerily bloodthirsty. It was a frenzied, hasten game, and Draco was trying with all his might to find the bloody Snitch and put an end to the damned thing, but he couldn’t focus, and his eyes were scanning the grey sky for Harry every minute, and it was hopeless.

‘You fucking idiot, Harper should have played,’ Goyle snarled, swooping in from Draco’s left to fly at his side, bat menacingly tapping at his shoulder. 

‘It’s fine, Goyle,’ Draco huffed, voice slightly shaking - they were high up now, and the wind was wisping ice cold under his shirt. ‘I’ll get us the Snitch. Just… don’t send any more Bludgers Potter’s way, alright?’ 

Goyle’s eyebrows rose up to his buzzcut hairline. ‘He’s their bloody seeker.’ 

‘He hurt his arm. You’ll kill him next.’ 

Goyle grumbled, ‘Like the prick can die.’ 

He flew off. Draco searched absently for the telltale shimmer of gold across the field, but the Snitch was still nowhere to be seen. Harry was even higher than him, by the Slytherin hoops. He was still holding onto the broomstick with only one hand. 

There was an altercation between Chasers right beside him. Draco slipped through them as they pursued the Quaffle, but Demelza Robins’s broom hit his torso and he was thrown, spiralling away to his left. When he regained control of his own broomstick, he’d been gliding for almost thirty feet. Scratches from the bristles of her broom were blooming red and angry on his forearms. 

When he heard a hiss of air beside him, he was half expecting - half hoping - it to be Harry. He turned, however, to see ever-infuriating red hair, and Ginny’s eyes regarding him cooly. 

‘You plan to murder me, Weasley?’ he said. He began surveying the grounds for the Snitch again. 

‘I was hoping you’d fall and save me the trouble. Why are you playing, Malfoy?’ 

Draco turned to look at her. There was something in the way she was observing him that unsettled him. He looked away again. ‘I hardly think you should be chitchatting on the field.’

‘You were chatting to Harry.’ 

‘We aren’t bloody chasers, are we?’ 

Ginny huffed. ‘You weren’t planning to play. You changed your mind. For Harry?’ 

‘Well, certainly not for you,’ he drawled; but she was looking more surprised than offended, and he realized he might have been too transparent, so he was quick to add ‘I wanted to piss him off. My team just embarrassed your brother. Maybe you should go help him out instead of talking to me.’ 

Ginny turned to see Ron throwing the Quaffle back into play, looking dispirited, and sprinted back into action without another word. 

He sighed. The Gryffindors scored thirty points while he investigated a trembling of gold that had turned out to be the reflection off a loose nail from the stands. The disappointment settled low in his skull, heavy, pushing him down; he really was tired, and all the spins and turns had left him dizzy, and he might actually throw up. He might actually fall. And Harry, in turn, who was zigzagging through the air, slower now, revisiting places he’d been in before, staying away from the center, where the tornado of Chasers posed a serious threat, didn’t seem much better off. His movements were severely restricted now that one of his arms had been rendered useless. Draco was worried that it might be bleeding - it wasn’t like he’d notice through the vibrant red robes, and Harry would most likely let the arm rot off before seeing the nurse. 

One way or another, they had to stop playing soon, for both their sakes. 

He managed to catch up to Harry again. He aimed for casual, even though he could still remember Harry’s glare under the Hufflepuff tower, and the weight of the conversation they were having before the Bludger had hit him. 

‘You’re flying a little crooked there, Potter.’ 

‘Fuck off.’ 

‘Are you tired?’ 

Harry didn’t even look at him; his gaze was very intent on some spot below them. It gave Draco the familiar itch to get his attention. He insisted, ‘Surely you’re tired. I’m tired.’

‘Call Harper to replace you.’

‘I was thinking,’ Draco reasoned, ‘We could both do that. Call our replacements, that is. Come on, Potter, you’ve got nothing to prove. You’ve been here long enough - everyone knows how brave the Golden Boy is. No one will judge you if you ask to trade.’ 

There was a small pause, Draco’s words hanging in the air, sounding very much like a plea. Then, Harry spoke, his voice clipped.

‘Do you actually think I’m playing so no one judges me?’ 

Draco sighed. ‘I think you’re playing because you’re _insane_. How’s your arm?’ 

Harry was still not looking at him.

‘It’s hanging on.’

‘Can I-’ 

Harry plunged down, all furious speed, straight towards the midst of the game - Draco’s eyes followed him in surprise, and there, below, trembling by Dean Thomas’s head, was the Golden Snitch. 

Draco swooped down immediately. They rushed through the air, dark shadows across the grey sky; the shouts from the other players became louder as they approached, a mess of brooms and limbs and the dangerous hiss from the Quaffle and the Bludger; Harry was a blur, small and curved over his broomstick with that single-minded elegance, that impressive, confident speed Draco had always admired, and he couldn’t quite match it, couldn’t reach him, and he was still a few feet away when Pike, chasing the Quaffle, swerved in front of Harry, making him halt too quickly, too abruptly - he pulled his broomstick up, up, almost vertically; in the sickly slow speed at which one watches a tragedy unfold, Harry couldn’t stop the momentum and fell backwards, still clinging to his broom, pirouetting towards the grass. 

Draco’s heart seized. His lungs kicked every inch of oxygen out, and in this state, breathless, with no blood in his extremities, with the taunting sound of Harry’s bones breaking in his ears - and Harry was going to _die_ , his head would be bashed against the field, all blood and ripped skin, and he’d be dead, and Draco loved him, and why hadn’t the fucking idiot listened? - he dove straight down, trying to reach him. 

Harry was four feet from the ground - and Draco was still too far - when he finally regained control of his broom, swerving up so quickly that only the bristles of the broom grazed the grass. He flew up, swirling as he did so, stuttering in an unsteady route - and then, a millisecond later, he was all elegance again, practically laying over his broomstick, cutting intently through the air.

Still looking for Snitch. Still _playing_. 

When Draco finally managed to catch up to him, his voice was a wild and furious rough sound. 

‘Get the bloody hell out the fucking field, Potter!’ 

‘I’m fine, Malfoy,’ Harry shouted back. They were head to head, flying at full speed, their hair and clothes pushed back by the wind. 

‘You could have died!’

‘I didn’t!’ 

‘Is that the Gryffindor argument for fucking everything? You’ll die next time, you absolute tosser!’ 

Harry turned left sharply, Draco plastered to his side.

‘It was just here. I’ll catch it, and it’ll be over.’ 

‘It’s gone now, Potter. It disappeared during your stunt from earlier!’ 

‘Then I’ll find it again.’ 

And he was moving forward, like he hadn’t been flying at full speed after all, like he’d been holding back as a _courtesy_ for Draco, and Draco was going to lose him again, and see him fly up into the skies looking for that sadistic spark of gold, and see him fall again, and this time he’d see in excruciatingly graphic detail as his arteries slashed in a red explosion; because this _was_ dangerous, Draco wasn’t crazy, everyone around him was playing and acting like it wasn’t but it was, it had consequences, and Draco had always known Gryffindors required bravery but he didn’t know they required a complete utter lack of brains as well; and they were still somewhat close to the grass, safely so, but Harry would be flying up soon, to dangerous heights again, and why couldn’t he just fall off now, if the bloody fool refused to leave of his own free will? Why couldn’t he just fall and get a little bruised instead of dying? Why couldn’t he just stop? Why didn’t he just get out of the fucking field? 

It was by pure impulse and panic that Draco leaned to his right, clashing against the end of Harry’s broomstick before he lost him for good - _pushing_ him, sending his broom into a wild spin. 

This time, Harry couldn’t regain control. He tried to grab the broom with both arms, but as soon as the hand from his injured arm circled the smooth wood he withdrew it like he’d been burnt. With only one hand, and less than thirty feet from the ground, there was no way to escape the fall: he seemed to realize this, and he turned in a strange way, contorting his body so that, when he clashed with the ground, he fell with his already battered arm first, a sickening crack echoing through the field. 

The hiss of the whistle was heard; the commotion of broomsticks above them stopped in abrupt silence. 

Among the grass, Harry’s broom laid innocently. It wasn’t broken. Was Harry? 

Draco flew to the ground and dismounted his own broom in a hurry. The loose fabric of his uniform slapped against his skin as he sprinted towards Harry’s immoble form. He’d done that; he’d pushed Harry, because it had seemed like such a great idea to have him fall now and not when he was back at a sixty feet height. It’d seemed like such a proper genius plan at the time, but now it occurred to Draco, freezing and _terrified_ in his chest, that he might have _killed_ him. 

Harry was surrounded by Gryffindors before he could get to him. Alicia Spinnet was kneeling besides his head, saying some unintelligible things in a commandeering tone. Ginny, as well, was kneeling beside him, jaw set and eyes soft, all of her the perfect lover. Ron had just landed, and was running towards the small crowd. Even the little figures in the stands were hurrying to the field. 

Draco tried to penetrate the crowd and get closer, but a hand found his chest.

‘Malfoy, mate, stop,’ Dean Thomas said. His forehead was glistening with sweat, his breath ragged, his gaze constantly flickering to the tight circle of crouched figures in the grass. ‘You’ll just make a scene. I mean, not _you_ , just- more people. Just tell your team to clear off.’

‘Is he alright?’ 

‘He’s-’ Dean glanced back at the crowd. ‘We think he broke his arm. We’ll get him to the nurse. It’s fine, we- we had to wrap up the game before Potions anyway.’ 

‘But he’s alright?’ 

‘I hope so. Yeah, it’s- just tell your team to go, aye?’ 

Draco nodded absently. Thomas was eager to leave him and disappear in the circle of Gryffindors. They were all so huddled together, backs curved and arms over each other, that he couldn’t even see Harry on the grass. 

Digging his nails into his palms, he turned. The Slytherins had swooped down as well, standing a little way off, unsure of what to do. He’d go to them, and tell them to change for class, to pay no mind to what had happened. Nothing _had_ happened: players fell all the time in Quidditch. Harry hadn’t even fallen from that high - Draco had made sure of that, hadn’t he? He’d most likely broken some bone, and that was all. He’d be fine. It was fine. 

He walked weakly towards them, mouth dry, sight blurry, one sickening picture flashing in his mind: Harry’s limp body, so small among the grass, all swallowed in scarlet fabric, so that Draco couldn’t distinguish blood from not. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contrary to how it might look, this is not going to unleash 20.000 words of angst or some shit, so no one worry, fluff is imminent!
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	10. Morals & Healers

In Potions, neither Harry, Hermione nor Ron showed up. Their empty seats weighed dark and grim on Draco’s conscience. Every Gryffindor in attendance was distracted and fidgety; Neville and Finnigan in particular were sending him pointed looks whenever he ventured to the supply storage. 

They knew, he’d realized. From the first row on the stands, it would have been obvious that Draco had pushed Harry. Invisible had been the terror inside him, the crushing concern, the blind, frantic urge to help - no, all they’d seen had been their bodies colliding. Harry crashing into a cloud of dirt. They ought to think him mental - Draco bet they’d be quick to let the entire school know the rotten, pathetic Draco Malfoy had not truly changed nor found redemption inside the Golden Boy’s intimate circle; rather, he’d wormed himself between them, then thrown Harry off his bloody broom. 

Guilt was corroding him, yet a sullen, self-righteous part of him recounted every time he’d tried to help nicely, looping it incessantly in his mind, casting in the reflection of his brew the first time Harry had fallen, when Draco had been sure he would hit the ground and bash his head in, and it hissed in a voice that was low and adamant and entirely Slytherin: he hadn’t done the good thing, but he’d done the _right_ thing. Harry was a fucking idiot - he would have killed himself, and Draco had _stopped_ him.

Still, because this voice ached for confirmation, and he had still hurt Harry, no matter his intentions, and he could only handle so many side eyes from Finnigan and Longbottom whenever he went to fetch more aconite, he ended up turning towards Pansy halfway through the class.

‘I have something to tell you.’ 

‘Of course you do, darling, you’ve been brooding since you got here. Spit it out then; and pass me the bat wings, would you?’

Draco told her, hushed and evasive, what had happened on the grounds. He didn’t mention his little episode with Harry in the bathroom: that, for some reason, seemed still too surreal to put out into the world - were he to speak it aloud, he feared someone would hear the unlikeliness of it and snatch it right out from under his sight. When he was finished, Pansy’s potion had simmered into a rich purple, while Draco's was sticking viscous and burnt to the bottom of the cauldron. 

‘I’ve the faintest as to why you’re so beaten up about this. Better he fell low than high.’ 

Yes, hissed that hardened voice inside him, in its bifurcated tongue: he’d done his best for the person he loved. Those bloody Gryffindors, with their ridiculously vague and inflexible sense of right and wrong, could be mad all they wanted; Harry himself could be furious, and Draco wouldn’t care - he rathered Harry never spoke to him again because he so chose than because he was dead. 

His heart still clutched impossibly tight, however, when he remembered Harry crashing on the ground. 

‘They wouldn’t tell me what was wrong with him.'

‘I assure you, Draco, the only thing wrong with that boy is purely in his brain.’

‘Pansy,’ Draco sighed, staring morosely at his brew, I might have actually hurt him.’ 

Small bubbles were forming on the surface of the wretched, gelatinous rubbish he’d been cooking up. She stared at his potion, one eyebrow poised appraisingly. The bubbles burst, she rolled her eyes and lifted one arm gracefully. 

‘Professor? Professor, we need more mallowseet.’ 

Slughorn looked up from where he was writing at his desk, eyes dazed and absent.

‘Ah, you do?’ 

‘May we go fetch some from the greenhouses?’ 

‘Yes, yes, I suppose so,’ he murmured, ‘Get enough for the whole class, mind you. Mallowsweet is such a useful- get enough, enough for the first years too, yes? There’s an experiment with them I’d like to try, a delightful little... ‘ 

Pansy was already standing, a little smirk in her lips. By the pinch he got on his neck, Draco figured he was meant to follow her. 

‘I swear, Pansy, if you’re planning on dragging me to the infirmary…’ he gritted through clenched teeth, pointedly looking away from Longbottom and Finnigan, whose expressions were quite hostile as they followed him out the classroom with their still tired, still bloodshot gaze. Just the notion of seeing Harry’s fierce, restless spirit confined to the minimalistic antiseptic white of that place filled him with rage; and the thought of seeing the damage he’d caused, of then asking for forgiveness, the likely possibility that Harry would _deny_ him and want nothing more to do with him made him nauseous.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Pansy drawled, tugging him through the halls. ‘We’re not going to the infirmary. At least not yet. We’re going to Hogsmeade.’ 

‘What on earth for?’ 

You’re getting your boyfriend a present, and then you’re going to apologize for saving his life.’ 

Draco found himself with nothing to say; he followed, compliant, all the way to the train station and further, to the snowy village. 

When, after much fussing - and one long, breathless moment where Draco had felt suddenly overwhelmed by the day’s events and gone to Madam Puddifoot’s for tea -, a present for Harry had finally been sorted, and they were walking through the peaceful streets back to the station, Draco holding tightly onto a box, Pansy with a parcel of mallowsweet, Draco finally had the nerve to say: 

‘We kissed last night.’ 

‘Did you really?’

‘Yes. I sucked him off.’ 

Pansy’s smile was sinful. ‘Good for you. How’d he taste?’

‘I’m not telling you that.’

‘Possessive, are you?’

‘Terribly so.’

The walk to the infirmary, on the other hand, went much less swimmingly. Pansy parted from him halfway to place the mallowseet in the supply closet; she didn’t as much as give him a steady look, leaving like Draco’s task was the simplest thing in the world, no need for threats nor encouragement, and thus, in this surety, Draco felt impossibly obliged to go through with it. 

In front of the door to the infirmary, to his greatest displeasure, Granger was speaking to the nurse. He didn’t even consider going back, since it’d struck him now that his dear Harry was beyond that wall, and it maddened him not to know how injured he’d been, how serious it was, if he was still laughing, if he was in too much pain; but it made him stutter his pace, halt with a squid of his shoe on the stone, and Hermione’s eyes snapped from the woman to him, narrowing into the eeriest little slits. 

He thought he’d feel embarrassed, or some instinctive sort of regretful under her judging gaze - her _knowing_ gaze, since she wasn’t just another pesky Gryffindor with the wonderfully simplistic notion that Malfoy was Malfoy and hence he hated Harry, no, she _knew_ how he felt. Instead, with every step he took forward, his hesitante ebbed, and a sudden fury grew, a crushing wave of tension and rage, like she now incarnated Harry’s stubbornness on the field. _She_ was the one who was meant to be sensible, who should have stopped Harry from playing.

‘Guarding the door, Granger?’ he sneered. His fingers were tersely clutching the large box.

The nurse bowed her head in brisk goodbye and disappeared into the infirmary. Draco saw but a flash of white covers - no sight of Harry. Hermione regarded him coolly. She had the type of quiet anger that made words sharp and not hot. 

‘I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to show.’ 

Draco swallowed. ‘I’m his friend.’

‘You pushed him.’ 

‘So that he wouldn’t fall!’ he snapped, then struggled to collect himself. ‘From higher, I mean. He would have, you know he would. Tell me you didn’t see how he was falling before. Tell me you didn’t think he was going to crash. He would have hurt himself if he kept going.’ 

Hermione was looking at him like one looks at a horrifying, incomprehensible thing; and though with Pansy that private sibilating voice had flourished, under Hermione’s gaze it stuttered. 

‘He’s hurt _now_ , Malfoy. Do you understand how foolish you were out there? You could have died as well, playing! You pushed Harry with absolutely no guarantees the fall would be safe. He could have fallen on his head! You could have killed him!’ 

Draco set his jaw; the colour had rushed out of him, he stood livid in the austere chamber. 

‘And if I hadn’t done it - if I’d let him carry on playing, would I not have been killing him as well?’ 

‘His recklessness is not yours to fix,’ she said somberly. 

‘Of course it fucking is!’ he shouted. ‘You damn Gryffindors always think being reckless is a point of honour. It’s not a quality, Granger, it’s a bloody birth defect.’ 

‘No, Malfoy,’ her stern eyes met his, ‘I meant, it’s not _yours_ to fix.’ 

She’d said it so ruthlessly - she’d said it knowing how much it would hurt. And she’d said it with a vicious honesty that made Draco feel so suddenly unfit, like he truly was an intruder there, unwelcome and imposing, some obsessed, ogling maniac Harry would never want around. 

Like he didn’t have a place in Harry’s life. 

Doubt creeped in. He murmured, half-hearted, staring at the box in his hands, ‘What the fuck do you know?’

‘You can’t make decisions for him because you think you know best. Specially when your decisions end like _this_ ,’ she jerked her head back, at the door - and Draco was so fearful of what was beyond it, how hurt Harry was, how bad _he_ had hurt him.

He forced a curt shrug. Pansy had agreed with him, hadn’t he? She’d barely batted an eye.

‘I rather see him hurt than dead.’ 

Hermione rolled her eyes dismissively, like his words were entirely meaningless.

‘That’s not your choice.’ 

‘Why the hell not? I care more than he does. More than you do, as well.’ 

‘Don’t you dare say that, Malfoy,’ her eyes flashed dangerously. He’d seen them like that once before - in third year, a millisecond before her fist had battered in his cheekbone.

But her anger didn’t mean Draco was wrong - because Hermione was trying to lecture him about love like he was some inconvenient beginner, but he wasn’t; he’d loved faithfully and devotedly for over seven years, and he knew what he was talking about.

‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? If you did love him you wouldn’t give a shit about your moral code. You’d want him alive, and that would be that.’

Hermione was an instant from firing back; then, something caught up with her, and her lips pressed together at comical speed. She regarded him now not like he was some pesky child trying to pick a fight, but as if he was an object of study. 

‘Do you _actually_? Love him, I mean.’ 

Draco frowned. The question, at that point, seemed incredibly ridiculous.

‘Of course I bloody love him, why do you think I’m here?’ he said - and it was hushed, an urgent, furtive whisper, but the words had been spoken aloud regardless. It was now the second time he’d said it. After years of swallowing the words, the achievement made him dizzy. 

There was one brief moment when Hermione’s expression cleared into something soft - Draco figured she must be seeing him as one sees a small animal crossing a busy street, all raw vulnerability and pitiful naivety, charming only in its potential for tragedy. 

‘Well,’ she answered, after a compass of silence. ‘You’re awful at showing it.’

Draco huffed a humourless laugh. He tapped his fingers on the cardboard.

‘I don’t have much practice.’

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. The pause between them unfolded tense and antagonistic. She didn’t seem much eager to leave her spot in front of the door - the argument hadn’t repaired her opinion of him, only given it, at most, a dissuading sort of pity. Draco, on the other hand, was resolute to get inside and visit Harry. An itch was growing in him, insidious in the back of his eyes, tormenting his focus, so he could only think of finally seeing Harry: and they had no sense nor cohesion, these pictures, only scattered, impossible little things. He saw himself apologizing on his knees; Harry bruised an unsightly purple; Draco pressing his lips ever so lightly over the burst capillaries; Harry screaming at him; Harry _understanding_ ; for one sudden, heady moment, Harry reciprocating that blowjob. They swirled almost simultaneously, and culminated in this very vague, overwhelming wish to see him, so he withstood her piercing gaze with one nonplussed eyebrow raised, and it was her, in the end, that broke the impasse. 

‘What’s in the box?’ 

‘A present,’ he answered tersely, trying to squander his embarrassment. 

‘What is it?’

Draco scoffed. ‘That’s for him to find out, isn’t it? That is, if you’ll actually let me pass before he’s discharged.’

Hermione bit her lip in relieving indecisiveness.

‘Yes, alright. Just… don’t make a scene, Malfoy.’

‘Of course,’ he was quick to say. She moved to the side, and he was reaching for the door when he thought better of it and called out after her retreating form, ‘Granger! Granger,' he faltered, 'I didn’t mean to hurt him. Don’t- don’t let people think I did.’ 

Hermione gave him a long look. ‘As far as the school’s concerned, Harry lost control of his broom. I, Seamus and Neville are the only ones who saw what happened. I won’t try to change their minds about it.’ 

Not waiting for a response, she left the antechamber. Draco thought it fair. It pained him, however, to think Finnigan and Neville would be holding this grudge against him. He did still want to play nice with Harry’s friends, after all - at least if Harry still wanted him around. 

The infirmary smelled faintly of talcum. The pale sunlight filtered through the narrow windows, tepid and bashful. Changing the sheets from one of the beds was the nurse who had been talking to Granger. A few beds after laid Harry. 

No more grass nor coarse scarlet swallowing him up: now, slim tender limbs rested on soft white covers. He looked frail, which was an odd look on Harry - beautiful, perhaps, in its vulnerability. Beautiful as the stem of a flower that curves ever so slightly and makes one think of holy things; and as the stem leads the gaze up to an explosion of colour, so did Harry’s body lead to the hypnotizing liveliness of his eyes, bright green against the despairingly tame white, brimming with all the strength that had faded from the rest of him. If he were asleep, he would have looked dead. With his eyes opened, he was the purest illustration of life. 

Draco’s footsteps echoed in the quiet room. Harry soon noticed he was there. 

‘You broke my arm.’ 

Harry’s tone was light; like reciting a mildly amusing fact. Draco walked around his bed, settling, after a second of hesitation, on a chair by its side. 

‘The one the Bludger hit?’

‘The very same,’ Harry answered with a wry smile. ‘It broke in four different places. Gave me a concussion too.’ 

Draco shifted in his place. He could see a stripe of gauze wrapped tightly around one of Harry’s biceps, disappearing under the covers. 

‘You fell on it. On purpose. I saw.’ 

Harry attempted a shrug. His smile was a tired, lopsided thing.

‘The Bludger had already fucked it. This way I only have one useless limb.’ 

Draco stared at him, eyes wide; then, he broke into laughter. 

‘That’s the bloody stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Potter,’ he sniggered, painfully aware of the hopeless fondness in his tone. Harry chuckled back, a tired little sound that made all of Draco’s guilt surface in an overwhelming wave: here Harry was, arm broken and skin red and purple, all because of him, and he was still friendly, still so impossibly warm, and Draco felt incredibly sorry that he’d confined him to this cold, sad, monotonous room. 

When Harry’s laughter subsided, Draco asked, a knot in his throat, ‘Are you mad?’ 

Harry gave him a pointed look, withdrawing his good arm from under the covers to wave a hand around absently. Draco was briefly distracted by the vision of smooth, pale skin - there were bruises there. One near his bony elbow had gone an obscene black. Draco thought back to the previous night, his fingers digging into Harry’s hips while he writhed so prettily... had he made bruises then? Small red circles to decorate the spots of skin he’d kissed so sweetly? Were Harry to undress now, would he be able to trace those marks, or would they now be lost under bigger, darker ones?

_‘Yes,_ I’m mad. You pushed me off my bloody broom, you arsehole.’

The Healer left the infirmary; the door swung close slowly, whining as it scratched on the stone. They were alone, and Harry was alright and Draco had been terribly afraid, and he wanted to gather him into his arms and feel his heartbeat against his ear. But Harry was angry and, even if he wasn’t, there was no reason he’d allow Draco to do that sort of thing. He hadn’t spoken of last night, nothing but lighthearted mentions. Maybe that’s all it had been: some impulsive episode to joke about in the most abstract of terms, never quite real, a drunken anecdote. 

He glanced at the cardboard box that rested expectantly on his lap. He’d been half-heartedly trying to wish it away since he’d gotten it at Hogsmeade - it had a way, somehow, of seeming incredibly less poetic when Pansy wasn’t there. 

‘I got you a present.’

Harry’s eyes brightened with amusement.

‘Well, I can’t very well go get it, can I? Hand it over.’ 

Draco drew a small smile and stood so he could place the box gingerly in Harry’s lap. On a fit of bravery - he had been, after all, surrounded by Gryffindors the entire day - he didn’t return to the chair, sitting rather on the edge of the bed. Not quite touching Harry’s body, an inch away from his waist, but close enough that it felt much more intimate. Close enough that he could very well - if he was someone else, probably Leanne, probably Finnigan, who’d call him ‘doll’ so surely - lean down and kiss him. 

Harry, oblivious, didn’t even look up to register Draco’s move. His entire focus was on the box, which he opened without preamble. His smile grew wide and deviant, eyes twinkling with mirth. 

‘You hate these.’ 

‘Good thing they’re not for me, then,’ Draco mused, a very pleased, relieved smirk gracing his lips as he watched Harry take out one of the small treacle tarts and have an eager bite. 

‘It’s the second time you’ve bought me these,’ Harry remarked. Color had risen back to his cheeks, and he sat up straighter, smiling, holding onto the sickly treat with his bruised arm. 

‘If you plan on badgering me about it, I’ll take them right back.’

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Harry smirked wickedly. ‘You’re the one who stuck me in here, after all.’ 

‘Funny how Granger is more furious about this than you,' Draco idly pointed out. The picture of Harry licking the filling of the treacle tarts was undeniably charming, and he was fighting the temptation of leaning in and kissing the sugar off his lips.

He figured he might develop a passion for the saccharine pastry if he got to taste it that way. 

Once more, Harry tried to shrug. The movement came out stunted, his broken arm barely moving under the covers - it seemed to irritate him, a groove digging in between his eyebrows. 

'Hermione was always smarter than me.'

He didn't seem to want to talk about it any further. He finished his first tart and moved on to the second one with equal hunger. In the descending silence, Draco scrambled for words. He found himself speechless, this close to Harry, sitting in the same bed as him, like some fumbling preteen wanting to hold hands, which was just incomprehensible - hadn’t he had his fingers in Harry’s hair less than twelve hours ago? His moans in his mouth, his body shaking against his, he’d swallowed him unashamedly. How could this innocence - completely platonic, nothing at all - bother him now? 

It couldn’t. Draco had to snap out of it. 

‘How’s the rest of you? Besides the arm, I mean. And the head.’ 

Harry licked his lips, where a dusting of powdered sugar had gathered.

‘Bruised, scraped. You could have been a little more gentle, you know?’ 

‘What, was I supposed to _tip_ you off it?’

‘You weren’t supposed to do anything,’ Harry retorted. His tone had taken on a sharper cadence. 

Draco sighed. His fingers twisted into the white covers. ‘You really are cross, aren’t you?’ 

‘I’m _annoyed_.’ 

‘Well, I apologize, for what it’s worth.’ 

‘Good of you to say.’ 

Harry’s attention was still on the damned tarts. Draco felt helplessly small, like every inch of closeness he’d conquered the previous night had been reinstated and stretched infinitely wider - he’d gotten a taste of Harry’s lips, skin, affection, and now, because of some foolish mistake, he’d been pushed away, a slow, lukewarm mass of resentment between them. 

But perhaps it would be temporary. There’d been genuine want in Harry’s eyes that night, hadn’t it? Draco’s memory was a fickle thing, too twisted by a life’s worth of dreams to be properly trustworthy, but he’d _seen_ it. It couldn’t have been a fantasy - in them, it never felt as good, and Harry always loved him back. If Harry had liked him before - as a friend, as a partner, as a warm mouth, Draco wouldn’t complain - perhaps not all was lost. Of course resent would linger, the side effect of pain. Eventually, however, the bruises would fade, the fractures would heal, and with this soreness so too would his grudge disappear, and their friendship, with a bit of effort, would hopefully reform. Draco could be patient - surely it wouldn’t take long.

It was strange, in fact, that his arm hadn’t been healed already. It wasn’t a magical fracture, he’d just fallen on the grass. Accidents like those were usually less than half an hour at the infirmary.

‘Why didn’t the Healer fix you?’

Harry cocked his head, swallowing another mouthful.

‘With a spell? Something about the tendons. Wasn’t paying too much attention, to be honest. I reckon Madam Pomfrey would have done it with a snap of her fingers.’

Draco frowned. ‘Do you have to stay overnight?’ 

‘And all day tomorrow. They’re bringing in another Healer for advice. Oh, don’t give me that look, it’s not that bad.’ 

‘It _sounds_ bloody awful,’ Draco scoffed, not quite schooling the concern which had crispened his features. He took a better look at Harry then: he could see the thin, dark line of Harry’s scar under a strand of hair, a subtle purpling disappearing into his hairline, another bruise - they never ended - sprouting just under his skin, and a precarious twinkling in his eyes, as if he’d been subsisting throughout the day on a measly reservoir of adrenaline and now, like the bright oranges of a wooden log before the blades are extinguished, his energy pulsed for one last valiant effort before he drifted off to sleep.

Slowly - because this dizzying proximity was cruel to his efficiency of thought -, Draco concluded that perhaps he should have brought Harry some tea and not the equivalent of a sugar high. 

Harry, on his part, had raised his eyebrows with a wry expression

‘Should have thought about that before you pushed me, Malfoy.’ 

He’d said it mostly in amusement, but the subtle edge wasn’t lost to Draco. It truly was forsaken, wasn’t it? He’d ruined it. 

‘I really am sorry, Potter.’ 

‘Yes, I know,’ Harry huffed. ‘I don’t think you regret it, though.’ 

Surprised at the words, Draco thought back to the game - the ruthless wind, the blur of colours as chasers and beaters zoomed by, Harry sitting precariously on his broom, one arm curled into his chest like a wounded wing. Thought of the times he’d _asked_ Harry to step off; the way his breath came short every time Harry refused. Thought of Pansy’s words, of the hissing voice inside him: better he fell low than high. 

He didn’t answer, fiddling with a loose fiber from the covers. Harry sighed. 

‘Would you overreact if I told you to leave?’ 

Draco swallowed, then forced out a weak laugh.

‘No. You ought to get some rest anyway, Potter.’ 

He stood, flattening the creases of his shirt for one lingering moment. He was certain Harry was looking at him with some sort of pity, or worse - relief at being rid of him. It’d been a mistake going there. Harry didn’t cherish his apology as much as he cherished his absence. He ought to have stayed away, waited a few days, made sure not to overstep. What this little exercise had done was strain their relationship. 

‘Thanks for the tarts, mate,’ Harry called out before he reached the door. 

Draco couldn’t summon a proper goodbye. He left with a wave.

The walk to the dungeons was a strange event. He went through the halls in a bleak daze, not paying much attention to his surroundings, descending a set of stairs he’d forgotten existed, and found himself in the Tapestry Hall. He ran out of there with clenched teeth, almost clashing against a rattish, frightened young Ravenclaw. She was the harmless sort of innocence, and he still hated her, hated that damn room, that fucking storage room, his terrible friends for convincing him to go to the Quidditch pitch in the first place. 

Hated the word pulsing in the forefront of his mind. Harry had called him ‘mate’.

He’d figured that, after he’d kissed him, after he’d blown him for his very first time, he’d conquered the right of being called something less trivial. He hadn’t expected a pet name - no ‘love’, no ‘dear’, he was greedy but not an imbecile -, but ‘mate’ was the same name Harry had for Justin Fletchley, and Draco surely couldn't be on the same level as that colour-washed Hufflepuff. Then again, perhaps he was on a lower level now. He didn’t know what he was; he didn’t know what Harry _considered_ him. He knew only that he’d gotten him in the infirmary, and that Harry had asked him to leave. 

He settled in one of the armchairs in the Slytherin common room, bathed in dim lighting, staring distractedly at the dancing flames in the fireplace. It reminded him of a swirl of red and orange glitter. He closed his eyes and vowed not to think for the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	11. A Shrieking Night I

The following Sunday, a Healer arrived on the train. He was old, severe, a hunched shadow swallowed in black robes, and it was the shared opinion of the school that, judging by his solemn appearance, Harry’s injuries were awfully serious.

Harry didn’t show up at all that day. Granger and Weasley were fleeting faces. A handful of younger students were planning to venture into the edges of the Forbidden Forest to pluck some flowers for the famous Harry Potter - now all the more popular because he was wounded, and with that came the exciting reminder of his mortality.

Draco stayed quite far from the infirmary, but Pansy passed by and told him it was littered with nosy twits. Visits had been cancelled, yet they loitered by the door all the same.

Such were the inconveniences of loving a celebrity: even now that the war was over, he was a favourite subject of gossip. His name hovered in the air, ever slipping into Draco’s ear. It was impossible to forget him. Draco tried, nonetheless.

The Healer did his job, left as morosely as he’d shown, and Harry was back to class on Monday. He acted like nothing had happened: ‘the usual hazards of Quidditch’, he’d say with one of his crooked smiles. He failed to mention Draco had pushed him. The school remained ignorant, and Draco preserved his quiet life in the outskirts of the castle, unbothered and absent from anyone’s thoughts.

The days went past. The whispering got bored and changed aims. Harry Potter wasn’t the name in everyone’s lips anymore. Draco still heard it.

He wanted to talk to him. He’d thought - and thinking really was so often conducive to disappointment - that that odd night in the Three Broomsticks had been some kind of hallmark in their relationship. They’d _kissed_. They’d had some abstract form of sex. It didn’t seem natural to _ignore_ it. How was it that they’d been enemies for years, then a hesitant type of acquaintances, then friends, then _more_ , and now, unceremoniously, they were strangers?

Friday came. He hadn’t been invited to an outing. He hadn’t expected it - he felt disconnected not only from Harry but from his entire circle. Hermione and Neville, who’d been the most likely to invite him to anything, now resented him. There was no discernible way to breach this barrier that had settled bitter and stunted between them. He’d been cast out.

From the Astronomy tower, after dinner, Draco spied the group sauntering down the dark fields on their way to Hogsmeade. He closed his book with a snap and walked down the quiet halls to the lowest floor, planning to continue his reading in the windowless comfort of the Slytherin common room. He’d hardly finished his third page since he’d laid down on the sofa when Blaise and Pike came out of the dorms, their warmest cloaks donned.

‘Draco! Finally, mate, where were you?’

‘Tracey was going mental looking for you, dear. I thought she’d have a fit.’

Draco sighed. ‘Is she asleep now?’

Pike nodded absently. He was fiddling with the sleeves of his cloak, which was a care he seldom took.

‘I think so.’

‘Couldn’t have been that important then.’

Blaise let out a virtuous laugh that reverberated pleasantly throughout the warm, dimly lit room. He too looked especially aware of his appearance that night: a glimpse of something silk and purple peered through the sides of the cloak, and his skin glistened dark and rich like molten chocolate. He was looking to impress, it was clear.

‘Say, would you like to join us? You do look awfully pathetic over there.’

‘Depends. What have you gotten all dressed up for?’ Draco huffed. He’d lost his place on the page, but kept his gaze there all the same - it wouldn’t do any good to give Blaise too much attention.

‘Rowena,’ Blaise said with something triumphant in his tone. Pike was still fussing over the upturned brims of his sleeves.

‘That boring little Ravenclaw again?’ Draco scoffed. ‘That poor soul is the most unoriginal - oh, for Merlin’s sake, Blaise, help the poor boy out before he rips his sleeves off - anyway, she’s unoriginal, is what I meant to say. Just look at her bloody name.’

Blaise simply shrugged. He had Pike’s wrists in his hands now, neatly smoothing the fabric there. Pike, within his very limited portfolio of expressions, seemed incredibly embarrassed.

‘Her parents were fans.’

‘She’s really nice,’ Pike supplied. He sounded absent as he watched Blaise’s work.

‘I never said she wasn’t,’ Draco retorted. ‘Why are you even going, Pike? I’d think this was a date between those two.’

‘It is, but Rowena doesn’t know it yet,’ Blaise huffed. ‘She seems to find him funny,’ he laced an arm around Pike’s shoulders. ‘I’ve no idea why. Tonight I’ll shift her attention from him to myself.’

‘Sounds like a blast,’ Draco drawled.

Pike chuckled, tucked into Blaise’s lean figure. ‘I don’t mind. I find her a bit tiresome as well, to be honest. Figure she’ll make quite the pair with Zabini.’

‘Bastard,’ Blaise cried, stepping away from Pike in one of his flourished movements. Pike, the smitten fool, seemed genuinely sad for a moment. ‘Now, Draco, hurry and put on a nicer shirt. Say what you’d like about my sweet Rowena, but at least she’s not spending her night at school.’

‘I’d rather stay.’

‘When have I led you to believe that was an option?’

Draco thought back to the tight group of silhouettes he’d seen from the Astronomy Tower. He didn’t fancy the idea of running into them, though he did crave some fresh air.

‘Are you going to any bars?’

‘No, darling, we’re going to Madam Puddifoot’s for tea. Quit being dense and get off the bloody sofa.’

They hovered behind him as he made his way to the dorms and picked out a shirt. While he looked through the piles of fabric, he thought a bit more clearly on the matter. It wasn’t necessarily that terrible an idea. Harry’s group didn’t have a claim over Hogsmeade; Draco was allowed to go there, and Merlin knew he’d appreciate the alcohol. Besides, what would he, Blaise and Pike look to drunken eyes other than a trio of blurry shadows? No one would recognize him - it would require a predisposition to think of him in the first place.

He could always leave. The first glimpse he got of Harry - of his smiles and humoured eyes and fading bruises - if he couldn’t bear it, he’d leave.

The snow had thinned down by the time they’d gotten on their brooms. The flight to Hogsmeade was leisurely and careful; they zoomed over the lake, which had taken on an eerie silver under the moonlight, and refrained from flying higher than the top of the trees. Draco spent the entire ride trying to ignore the creeping feeling that, somewhere below him, amidst the thick, frosted foliage, Harry was spiraling towards the ground.

Once they’d dismounted, Blaise ushered them inside of Kettle Bottom. The place was cramped as usual. On one of the small tables sat Rowena, her hair in rich brown braids, dripping of classic romanticism. She was the sort of serene one practises in the mirror - Draco suspected Blaise fancied her all the more for it - and, when they ordered their drinks, she got a lean glass of Daisyroot and drank in measured sips.

She _was_ tedious. Such was the problem of gentle brilliance - like a poem, she served to be loved or admired, not to chat with. Blaise was enraptured by her all the same, and he leaned over the table to drink every rhythmic line she spoke; Pike followed the conversation quietly, his angular features shadowed by the red light; Draco, who was compressed between his friends in the claustrophobic space, knees bumping against Blaise’s and his back often shoved by strangers, was focusing on his firewhiskey, hoping its warmth would calm him and finding instead that it only enhanced his paranoia. He’d lost track of what his group was saying, choosing instead to spy the door through the dense crowd as if at any moment some recognizable Gryffindor would stumble through it.

Seeing that none did, and that the conversation had descended into something unmistakably flirtatious that not only bored Draco but _upset_ him, he excused himself with a curt nod and headed to the bar. Let Pike fend for himself against those two; Draco wouldn’t spend another second listening to their simple, fluid romance. It made him jealous, simple as that.

He elbowed his way through the mass of bodies and set his glass on the bartop. He’d order a shot, he decided, as soon as he was done with his first drink. Something different, exotic and vicious on his throat, that would clash with the firewhiskey. Maybe then he’d get a headache, or he’d feel nauseated, or some other kind of physical discomfort that would blissfully distract him. He’d hardly think of Potter if he was retching in the bathroom.

His mind was set, and he was waiting for the bartender, thrumming his fingers on the bartop to the rhythm of the song that was playing, which was low and hypnotizing and almost made him forget, when he felt fingers curl tightly around his shoulder.

‘Oy, Malfoy!’

He turned, and a fist collided against his cheekbone.

It tingled in his teeth, crickled in his bones. Blood burst bitter in his mouth - it didn’t taste unlike the firewhiskey. His head snapped back, swung back forward almost equally as fast, and with a disoriented sight and a pounding head he met Finnigan.

‘Squeeze me in, would you?’ he said, all wild eyes and red knuckles, and immediately forced his way to Draco’s side at the bar. Draco, who was still incredibly surprised, did little more than watch as his blood pooled rich and viscous in the cup of his hand. His lip had split, his cheekbone was tender - and pain, as it seemed, did nothing to relieve him, since his mind orbited obediently to Harry, to his fractured arm, to the purple marks littering his body.

‘Were you here for a shot? Make it two, then,’ Finnigan went on, placing his elbows on the bartop. He looked at Draco expectantly; his gaze caught almost disinterestedly on his bloodied hand and mouth.

‘Right. Explain the punch, will you?’

‘Only been a couple of days, you forgotten already? Oy, hey! Mister, two red rum shots here! You heard me, mate?’

Draco impatiently wiped the rest of the blood on the back of his hand. There were red splatters on his shirt.

‘Is this about Potter?’

‘See, was it so hard to guess?’ Finnigan taunted. The shots were poured. They handed some knuts to the bartender; someone to Draco’s right shoved him, and Draco was flattened against Finnigan’s side. He’d never been as close to the boy before - this boy with sticky arms and a loose tongue, dragging Harry to the dance floor, calling him ‘doll’ with that unashamed twinkle in his eye.

He ought to have punched him back when he’d had the chance, when the pain had irradiated through his skull and translated so simply into fury. It wasn’t like anyone would have noticed: they could have had an entire fight and the drunken crowd of Kettle Bottom wouldn’t have lifted their eyes from their glasses.

‘I know you’re too thick to get this, but I did it to _help_.’

‘I know.’

‘What?’

Finnigan shrugged. ‘I know. Bottoms up.’

Draco hastily grabbed his shot and they downed it in unison. The rum wasn’t too overpowering, warm with the lingering tartness of red currants. It burnt in his split lip. Finnigan laughed a little once he finished it, but it quickly subsided.

‘You still got him hurt.’

Draco rolled his eyes at the condescendence: why was it that no one thought he knew that?

‘And you figure he would have been fine if I hadn’t intervened?’

‘Dunno.’

Draco glared at him from the corner of his eye. His cheek still hurt; he could feel blood crusting in his chin.

‘You’re an idiot,’ he spit out. It didn’t come out too angry, though he’d aimed for it. More resigned. He fully faced Finnigan then - an inch from his face, with a spindley woman pushing at his back - and asked, ‘Do you like him?’

‘Who, Harry?’ Finnigan’s eyes widened; he huffed a laugh. ‘You’re mad, Malfoy.’

Idly, Draco nodded. He was sure Seamus was lying, though he’d acted convincingly enough. It seemed to Draco a bit impossible that someone _wouldn't_ like Harry, with his strong jawline and his liquid eyes, the jungle of black hair that begged to be tamed - to be tousled even _more_ -, the limber fit that had endured so much and was yet so fragile, lean and small, perfect to be held; and then that fire, paradoxical with his appearance, fueling his spirit into a restless frenzy; that drive to fight for what was right, that little smirk from jokes in his own head, that kindness he’d never learnt how to shield; strength and vulnerability more virtuous than in any other soul; and that laugh, when he laughed free and private; and the little moans that spilled from his lips, when someone kissed him right… Draco reckoned he’d fit anyone’s taste.

‘Do _you_ like him?’

‘Now who’s the mad one?’

Finnigan laughed, then pointedly slapped the bartop.

‘The group’s waiting outside, if you want to come.’

‘Thought you were all pissed at me.’

‘No offense, but we don’t give you that much thought,’ Seamus shrugged. ‘You coming?’

‘I- yes, of course. Let me fetch my coat.’

Draco broke through the crowd in search of his table. He could hardly believe he’d been invited again. Finnigan had _punched_ him - how was it now that he’d forgiven him? Could he even extend this invitation in the name of the entire group? Would they want him there? Did _Harry_ want him there? Should he even go, if all he’d get out of it was a mildly disappointed expression by Harry, and a night orbiting helplessly around him?

Well, it wasn't like he could refuse to go. There wasn't a fiber in his body capable of walking away.

‘What the bloody hell happened to you?’ Pike asked once he’d finally found the table, taking in his bloodied face.

‘I fell.’ Draco said, retrieving his coat from the stool he’d been sitting in. It should at least cover some of the blood stains. ‘I’m off. Have fun in whatever strange threesome this is.’

Finnigan was waiting for him by the door. They exited together.

Outside, in the icy street, Draco recognized all the usual members of Harry’s group. They were scattered, shivering in the cold, Luna and Sue closest to the door while the others stood a bit farther, forming tight circles with their arms linked and their hands in their pockets.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Luna remarked. Her eyes were wide and curious.

‘I punched him,’ Finnigan supplied in an offhand tone. ‘Is Ginny back from the loo?’

‘Ages ago. We were waiting for you slowpoke,’ Sue said before turning to Draco. ‘Why’d he punch you?’

‘I gather he didn’t like my shirt.’

‘Horrid,’ Finnigan nodded gravely. ‘Red suits you better. Oy! Weasley, are we moving or what?’

Ron jerked his head, cutting off the conversation he was having with Hermione and Spinnet.

‘Would you shut- Merlin, Malfoy, what happened to you?’

‘Seamus didn’t like his shirt,’ Luna answered with a good-natured smile.

Ron seemed to process the information for about a millisecond before his mind caught.

‘Well, wipe your chin, mate, you look bloody ghastly,’ he muttered. Then, he addressed the whole group, ‘Seamus is back, let’s get going.’

His words held a very subtle authority, enough to dispel all laziness, and everyone began channeling up the little street. Finnigan met up with Thomas, Luna and Sue’s pace was brisk - Draco stayed a while back, alone, the group melding into one close herd beyond him, and his eyes chased a sign of Harry. He found him leaning against the opposite wall with Neville, their heads bowed in private whispering. Ron shouted something at them and they followed between giggles, Harry swallowed in black robes. He seemed good, and he didn’t look at Draco once.

Did he even know he was there? Had he seen him walk out with Finnigan, lip swollen and shirt sprinkled red? It wasn’t like there’d been an announcement of some sort: it was perfectly possible that most of the group hadn’t noticed his presence. He would follow like a leech, and when they turned and saw him lean and dark and bloodied-mouthed they’d scream.

With long steps, he caught up to them. An invisible boundary was still straining the distance between them, blurring their chatter so it felt like Draco wasn’t supposed to be listening, casting him out as a passerby - thus, he hung one foot behind them, eyes lowering every so often to the ground, focusing on the lingering sting of his cheekbone. Suddenly hating the idea that Harry would see him, he remained on the opposite edge of the cluster, hopefully hidden from view.

This feeling of inadequacy only lasted so long. Hermione, not making any mention of his sudden appearance, handed him a bottle of Wizard’s Brew to place over his bruising cheek. Sue complimented Finnigan’s technique, someone else asked her what she was on about, the story spread. Spinnet asked him if it hurt, Draco answered ‘Of course it bloody hurts,’ and his voice echoed so clearly that it was impossible for anyone to have missed it. They knew he was there. He faded back into silence, but their words weren’t blurry any longer. He was no passerby.

Surprisingly enough, they didn’t head to any more bars. Instead, they went down a winding path that cut between the snow and stretched between the pine trees towards the black silhouette of the Shrieking Shack. The sounds of the village were replaced by the wisps of wind through thin branches and twigs and the occasional hoot of an owl.

‘What are we doing here?’ Draco whispered. He’d thought the haunted house would bring unpleasant memories.

‘It’s got places to sit and there’ll be no wind.’

‘Plus, it has a piano.’

Sue and Dean Thomas seemed fine with the situation; moreover, they spoke like it was a regular occurrence. Draco himself had no quandaries with the decrepit house. He did steal a look at Harry, though, over the heads of the others: he'd thought his godfather had taken residence in that place before he’d been killed. But Harry was still immersed in his conversation with Neville, and when they finally reached the house Ron forced the door open with a practiced gesture and they all filtered in, Harry included, without so much as a pause at the threshold.

There were spiderwebs everywhere; the moonlight was distilled through the cracked glass of the windows, bathing the dusty furniture in a gentle white. A chandelier hung perilously over the grand piano.

‘D’you stash the rum, Ron?’ asked Alicia.

‘Of course I did. It was my turn, wasn’t it?’ Ron said while he shrugged out of his coat. ‘It’s in the cupboards.’

Fletchley laughed. ‘Ingenious place to hide the alcohol.’

‘Sod off, it was Harry’s idea.’

‘No one’s gonna steal it,’ Harry retorted. His voice, tilted bright and energetic, beckoned Draco’s attention. He was fiddling with his glasses, distractingly endearing in his robes and looking properly warm for once in his damned life. ‘Everyone still thinks the house is haunted.’

‘Cupboards, was it?’ Sue said. ‘I’ll just stroll to the kitchen, then. Care to join me, Seamus?’

They left in a fit with Dean and Alicia hurrying behind them. The rest of them moved to the living area. Some squeezed into the ragged peach sofa; Ginny took an armchair; Harry and Neville hopped onto a sturdy table; Draco, who hadn’t wanted to intrude in case there was an ordinary sitting arrangement, and Fletchley sat on the nasty rug, leaning against the coffee table.

For about an hour, the group carried on in conversation. They curled in their seats, bunched their robes together as makeshift blankets and settled amid a dim, buzzed aura, lulled by the sounds of the wind on the old wooden boards. Hermione and the Weasleys were deep into some debate about old Quidditch regulations which Draco daredn’t interfere with, while Harry and Neville were still inaccessible in their little private exchange, attached by the hips on the large table. Draco hadn’t known they were so close. Regardless, he tried not to dwell on it, focusing instead on ingratiating himself into the conversation between Luna and Justin. They were talking about the colour lavender, quite ardently in fact - they had opposing thoughts. Draco nodded along and forewent keeping the frosty beer bottle against his bruised skin in favour of drinking it. It didn’t help much in finding the argument more interesting, but it did make him forget how cold the floor was.

He was still in disbelief that he’d managed to get into the circle again. He certainly hadn’t thought, when he was flying over the forest with Blaise and Pike, that he’d end up sitting cross-legged in the Shrieking Shack with the Golden Group. Not that he was complaining - too much, at least. He sincerely didn’t know if he rathered actually chatting to Harry or being completely out of his eyesight; it was the most dizzying conflict between wishing to have his full attention - because really, he’d been talking to Longbottom all bloody night, didn’t the twat want to talk to anyone else? - and being incredibly afraid of what Harry might say to him. It wasn’t like they’d parted on good terms the previous Saturday. His bruises had faded, but it didn’t mean his resentment had as well.

There was only one moment of friction. It came from Ron, since he was by far the most loose-tongued, when Draco was discussing the healing properties of murtlap tentacles with Luna.

‘Malfoy, what do _you_ think the consequence for blatching should be?’

‘What?’

Ron sent him a knowing look. Behind him, on the couch, Hermione sighed.

‘The punishment for blatching. You know, nowadays the other team gets awarded a penalty and that’s all. I say the player should be benched. I mean, trying to throw someone off their broom - nasty business, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want someone like that on my team.’

Draco’s smile, which had been growing during his exchange with Luna, fell at once. Hermione had told him, then. Not entirely unexpected.

‘Commitment makes a person do crazy things.’

The absolute truth, though commitment wasn’t necessarily related to the game.

‘I don’t-’

Ron cut Ginny off. ‘So being committed to the game means trying to kill your opponents?’

All parallel conversations had descended into silence. Ron stared down at him from the moth-eaten sofa. Draco leaned fully against the coffee table, trying to maintain some shred of calm.

‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

‘Whatever, Malfoy,’ Ron gritted out, ‘And wipe your fucking chin, I already told you.’

‘One would think you’d like to see me covered in-’

‘Oy!’ Neville shouted. His voice was ill-suited for that type of thing; too soft to properly cut through the tension. ‘Ease off, mates. Where’s this coming from?’

It was a decent attempt at pretense, given that Neville had seen Draco push Harry. The oblivious people in the room ought to be terribly confused, and the silence lingered awkward and unsettled for a while.

‘I’ve seen one, you know? One night, on a beach. I find them very friendly, murtlaps,’ Luna said, twirling a strand of hair with her finger. The stunted pause was broken, the separate conversations resumed, and Draco slowly relaxed again.

He did flick his thumb across his chin a few times. It came out just a little bit red, and he left it at that.

Dean Thomas came gliding out the kitchen, clearly having drunk an excessive amount of rum, and begged Ginny to build a snowman. A third Chaser, he said. Ginny convinced a couple others to go along, the few who’d been in the kitchen resurfaced with empty bottles and giddy smiles and the assembled team went tumbling out the door and into the snowy night. Draco, who had a certain fondness for keeping blood in his extremities, chose to stay inside. So too did Hermione, Sue, Harry and Neville.

Tentatively, he took a seat next to Hermione on the sofa.

‘I hate this,’ she said, waving the rum bottle Sue had given her.

‘I do as well. Hand it over.’

It wasn’t red currant this time. Sweeter. Sue, who was half laying down, her short hair scattered across the armrest, chortled.

‘How do you not like rum?’

‘Because it’s bloody awful,’ Draco drawled.

‘It’s not!’

Hermione rolled her eyes

‘You like everything, Sue.’

Sue didn’t answer right away, busy taking a swig of the sickly drink. Draco leaned back against the sofa. Out the corner of his eye he could see Harry and Neville, who were still sitting on the table even though there were now plenty better seats available. It was just idiotic, in all honesty: it was freezing in there, why would they rather the table? What on earth were they talking about - had been talking about since Draco had joined them - that was so private? Really, they should at least exchange a few words with the rest of them. It was rude not to. And not just rude: it was a bit selfish too, wasn’t it? They ought to all cram into the sofa and share body warmth. Or maybe not all of them, they wouldn’t fit - but Longbottom could sit in the armchair, he was too inconsequential to freeze anyway, and Harry could sit besides Draco, their sides flushed together, robes draped over them like blankets in some decadent pretense of domesticity, and they’d be close without the pressure of privacy, and Draco could finally scratch that itch that had been growing ever since he’d walked out the infirmary on Saturday, and everyone would be much warmer from it.

Selfish, they were.

‘I don’t like beer. No one likes beer. Everyone pretends because it’s cheap.’

Outside, there was a bout of hysterical laughter, then some thud against one of the walls. It was duller than the wind, presumably a snowball.

‘D’you think they’re having fun out there?’

Draco looked out one of the partially boarded up windows, catching a glimpse of the pitch black sky.

‘I reckon they’ll be ice cubes when we finally get up to check up on them.’

‘Why do you think he wanted Ginny?’ Hermione asked.

Sue snorted, bottle dangling from her fingers. ‘Why do _you_ think he wanted Ginny?’

‘Do you think he likes her?’ came Neville’s voice, unmistakably pensive. He was standing behind the sofa, fiddling with the sleeves of his old coat. It was awfully similar to the way Pike had fussed with his robes back at the common room. For the first time that night, Harry wasn’t plastered to his side.

Draco looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘When he doesn’t like Seamus, yes,’ Sue shrugged.

‘Where’s Potter?’

Three pairs of eyes settled on Draco as he cut through the conversation. It was Neville who answered:

‘He went upstairs. He likes to wander around whenever we come here.’

Most likely because of whatever connection the house had with his late godfather. Draco had never been one for gossip, but sometimes he found himself disappointed that this particular story hadn’t been more spoken of - he knew close to nothing as it was, and it bothered him that such a clearly important part of Harry’s life was a stranger to him.

He lasted for a few more lines of Longbottom’s lovesick wonderings before he stood, feigning nonchalance.

‘Is there any more rum in the kitchen, Sue?’

‘Might be, if Seamus and Dean didn’t drink it all.’

He adjusted the sides of his peacoat. It’d been his outerwear of choice ever since Harry had worn it. Whenever he was particularly disposed to pointless poetics, he almost felt the lingering shreds of his warmth.

‘I think I’ll go check.’

‘You said you hated rum,’ Sue called out. Draco didn’t bother answering; he left the living room through an archway from which dangled a series of spiderwebs. In the kitchen he procured a half empty bottle. He took the stairs up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, the amount of headcanons I have about the night life in Hogsmeade has taken over my life. 
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	12. A Shrieking Night II

Harry was in one of the bedrooms, peeking inside the debris of a wardrobe. A beam of moonlight bounced off his glasses. The light was white and gentle, an ethereal hue damning the house into something lost and dead. The silence seemed unbreakable. Harry broke it. 

‘Pass it, would you?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘The rum,’ Harry said, though his attention was still mostly on the wardrobe. ‘Share.’ 

Draco stepped closer after the smallest pause and offered him the bottle. Harry took a brief sip - he didn’t seem especially in the mood for it - before placing the bottle on a dusty vanity. The round mirror had been shattered, flickering moonbeams in infinite directions. 

‘Got bored of being downstairs?’

‘You could say that,’ Draco nodded, looking idly around the room. ‘Your friends all fancy each other, you know?’ 

Harry’s smile was curious. He crossed his arms as he leaned against the vanity.

‘Oh yeah? Who is it this time?’ 

‘Neville and Ginny. Dean and Ginny. Dean and Seamus, I think.’ 

He didn’t miss it when Harry winced. In retrospect, perhaps Ginny’s love life hadn’t been the safest subject. Still, something in Draco was glad the words had slipped out of his mouth, even if ill-thought - what better way to see if Harry still liked the young Weasley? Hermione had told him Harry planned on asking Leanne out, and he’d _kissed_ him, let him blow him in a bathroom, but perhaps Leanne and himself were rebounds. After all, Draco had been so caught up in his own ecstasy that night that he wouldn’t have noticed if Harry was gripping his hair and wishing it red. 

But Harry’s grimace was smoothed over, only a veil of wry amusement shown. 

‘They’re not nearly as dramatic as you might think.’ 

‘When they’re sober, perhaps,’ Draco huffed. Harry laughed, and the soft sound, disarming in its friendliness, prompted him to ask, ‘Are you still cross?’ 

‘Do I look it?’ 

Draco rolled his eyes. ‘All you ever look is confused, Potter.’ 

With a snort, Harry walked away to sit gingerly on the bed. A cloud of dust lifted as the frayed mattress dipped down, swaying like fog in the chilly air. 

‘I forgot about it as soon as the Healer fixed my arm, Malfoy. You can quit being skittish.’

The words eased a dull, regretful weight inside of Draco - with Harry’s forgiveness his guilt dissolved, leaving nothing but a spotty soreness and the occasional fit of panic when wind wisped too close to his ear. With tentative steps, Draco took a seat beside him. Harry lifted an appraising eyebrow, then promptly laid down with a sigh. 

‘The amount of bugs that’ll get in your hair is unfathomable.’ 

‘Coward.’ 

‘Cowardice and care are two very different things,’ Draco muttered, but he laid down on the ungodly thing all the same. It felt to him like a thick layer of dirt was already sticking to the back of his neck - the sense of discomfort took hold of him, thus it was only a moment later that he realized he was effectively sharing a bed with Harry, arm to arm, laid out so they could easily face each other and share a breath, a perfect picture Draco could tweak and twist until it depicted lovers on a winter night. The thought rose colour to his cheeks. Alcohol, that’s what he needed. Even that damned rum: it surely couldn’t be as sickly sweet as his fantasies. 

They’d left the bottle on the vanity, however. Draco bit his lip, released it with a hiss as he caught the swollen flesh, and maintained his gaze resolutely on the rotten ceiling as he spoke:

‘Everyone seems to like Ginny.’ 

‘Oh, you’re such a prick.’ 

‘I was just saying,’ he shrugged in half-hearted innocence. He’d hoped Harry would indulge that subject for at least a little longer. 

‘No one just says things.’ 

‘You really don’t have a lot of conversations, do you, Potter?’ 

‘Will you fuck off?’ Harry groaned, ‘ _You_ don’t just say things.’ 

Draco smirked. ‘Is that a compliment?’ 

‘Well, I really don’t see it as a quality,’ Harry retorted. He might have been looking at Draco - he sounded so annoyed that he probably was - but Draco couldn’t be sure, couldn’t summon the courage to look, lest he find their noses too close together and his lips search Harry’s unbidden. He was seriously considering retrieving the rum, if only to keep his lips occupied, even though the notion of relinquishing this intimacy was frighteningly unappealing, when Harry continued in a slightly wistful tone, ‘Ginny’s great.’ 

Is that so?’ Draco mused, cynical. After all, the girl was an amalgamate of Harry’s qualities tied up haphazardly: the challenge without the humour, the bravery without the charm, the threat without the vulnerability. Much too rough, all the brute strength of Gryffindors, the violence of the red without the finesse of the golden. A feral cat, not a lion. ‘I don’t see the appeal.’ 

‘D’you not, really?’ Harry asked. His voice was hushed; something in it, a certain rawness, finally persuaded Draco to face him. Harry was already looking at him, his skin an eerie pale from the moonlight. 

‘Really,’ Draco answered. As it was wont to - as the sudden intimacy of the moment dictated - his voice dipped too into a murmur. ‘Do you still like her?’ 

‘No.’ 

Draco bit his lip. This time, when teeth broke through crusted blood and sunk into the fresh wound, he didn’t stop. 

‘Good.’ 

Harry frowned. ‘Good?’

In response, Draco kissed him. 

He did it quickly, like one who knows they’ve overstepped. Firmly, because he might as well have no doubts that he’d done it. His lip stung like hell. He could feel the layer of dust on the back of his neck as he craned it for a better angle - could feel, after a breathless millisecond, Harry move a little towards him, a brush of warmth, a flick of his tongue, before he withdrew. His eyes were wide, his smile more so. 

‘You’ve got blood on your chin.’ 

It wasn’t really a reaction he’d been expecting. He didn't know what it _meant._

‘Would you tossers let that go? It was your friend that got me bleeding in the first place.’ 

And he was lifting a hand to rub self-consciously at his skin when Harry caught it midway, stilled it on the mattress under the palm of his and leaned in for another kiss. Slower now, since he knew it was welcomed; softer, since they both knew it was real. 

It was incredibly infuriating, kissing Harry with a split lip. It brought to it an inherent sense of violence that clashed with the gentle moonbeams - it hurt independently of how he moved, pulsed whenever he tried to deepen it, threatened to reopen with each brush of skin. Draco did his best, in any sense. The pain, as petty and high-pitched as it was, didn’t drown the surge of joy at kissing Harry; that emotion controlled him, as did the instinctive wish to meet the rhythm Harry was setting up, all growing urgency and sure softness and thrilling _enthusiasm_. 

Seeing as he couldn’t quite convey his feelings through the kiss, Draco thought to balance it out by moving to cover Harry’s body with his own, pinning him against the godawful moth-eaten mattress. Harry did a little noise - a bloody _sinful_ noise, a choked beginning of a primitive growl - and quickly sought Draco’s mouth again. Draco bracketed him between his forearms, primly ignored the dust clouds lifting around them and kissed him with renewed intensity, an impulsive vulnerability - because he got to kiss Harry now, got to feel his lythe body writhing beneath him, and it was the second time this had happened, which surely meant Harry couldn’t have regretted that bathroom blowjob too terribly, and he hadn’t even drunk that much, at least that Draco had seen, so the possibility remained that Harry was doing this purely because he _wanted_ to. 

This vigor, rewarding as it was in the moment - especially when it made Harry buck upward - did result in a particular sharp pain, and the telling taste of iron seeping into his tongue. 

Harry dropped his head onto the mattress. After his vision cleared and he took in the sight of Draco, he burst into laughter. 

‘You look like a fucking vampire.’ 

‘Bloody hell, it’s not _my_ fault,’ huffed Draco. On Harry’s bottom lip trembled a perilous drop of his blood, stark red against the slick flesh. It was sort of charming, in a very twisted way. He licked it clean, feeling Harry shudder beneath him. ‘You did tell me the vampire look suited me once.’

Harry raised an eyebrow. ‘How on earth would you remember that?’ 

‘I tend to remember strange compliments.’

Their hips had aligned themselves on their own accord. Harry was seemingly trying to drive Draco mad with that fact, pressing up often and briefly in a dizzying tease of friction.

‘Sure. What other strange compliments do you recall, then?’ 

Draco hummed. He couldn’t help himself from tracing Harry’s skin with his lips, leaving a faint red trail all the way from his mouth to his ear. 

'I remember you came quite fast last time. I'd certainly consider that flattering,' he whispered, a hint of mischief in his tone, and then, just to tease _back,_ he ground his hips hard against Harry, making him moan. 'Are you hard now, Potter?'

Harry did his best to glare, though his eyes were glazed. 

'I'm sure you can feel the answer to that.' 

Draco chuckled, still attached to Harry's ear. The last fluid droplets of his blood had been slithering down to raven black hair - he hoped they'd be hard to remove, that they'd dry up and stain his scalp, so that even if Harry forgot about this, even if he chose not speak about it as he had after that first night, he'd conserve some little bit of him. 

'I'll take that as a compliment too, then.' 

Harry didn’t so much laugh as groan, throaty and low; in a brazen speed, he caught the back of Draco’s neck firmly - not that Draco planned to go anywhere, he’d be quite content tucking his head in the slope of Harry’s shoulder for the rest of his life - and bucked up. They both stuttered a tortured sound. 

‘Is it smart to do this here?’ Harry whispered.

Draco snorted. If he focused past the heady fuzz of arousal, he could hear intermittent spurts of laughter from outside, sometimes a louder voice from downstairs. 

‘I’d call it a lot of things before I called it smart.’ 

‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t- I mean, fuck, there isn’t even a door.’ 

‘There’s a door.’ 

‘Yes, on the ground,’ Harry scoffed, squirming a little as Draco pressed slow kisses down his neck. ‘D’you plan on leaving blood everywhere, mate?’ 

The slight tone of complaint there - and that despicable word, so diminishing in its casualness, ‘mate’, sounding in Draco’s ears like a taunt - made Draco inch away. He hovered over Harry, taking a good look at him, searching for any sign of reluctance in his wild eyes. 

‘Listen, Potter, do you want to do this?’ 

Harry raised his eyebrow, looking unimpressed.

‘What a fucking stupid question to ask.’ 

‘It’s bloody not,’ Draco glared. He’d been obsessing over that question since friday; dreaming of it for years. ‘Merlin, Potter, I thought you’d like me asking for consent.’ 

‘Well, _I_ thought I’d made it explicit enough that you didn’t have to ask,’ Harry smirked. To make his point - and to tease, the twat - he thrust up and found Draco’s crotch again, slotting their clothed erections together. 

The taunt, as well as the hungry dare dilating Harry’s pupils, was enough to restore Draco’s confidence. He pressed him back down against the mattress, giving in to his own arousal with an indulgent twitch of his hips, and drew a wanton smirk. 

‘You haven’t. You ought to show it better.’ 

With a laugh, Harry tilted his head up to nip at the good side of Draco’s lip.

‘Yeah? Any suggestions on how to do that?’ 

And Draco certainly had a lot of suggestions - a portfolio dating back to around fourth grade, extending from the silliest, awkwardest fantasies to ones he’d finessed and kept prominent amid the rest, his predefined film to roll in the back of his eyelids before he drifted off to sleep. He wanted Harry to keep kissing him, insistent and openly wanting; he wanted to see him undress himself, wanted to tell him which piece to take off first and see if Harry went against him - because he always did, didn’t he?, only complied when Draco didn’t expect him to, making it in itself a rebellion; wanted to feel his deft hand around his cock, guide him through it, tell him what he liked and see - and _feel_ \- Harry oblige; wanted, in turn, to learn what Harry liked when he took himself in hand at night, and what exactly he pictured, and if he’d jerked off to the memory of Draco blowing him; wanted to suck him off again, have him do the same; wanted to hear him moan as he neared the edge and cry out his name when he came - not ‘Malfoy’ like last time but ‘Draco’, sweet and genuine and _loving_ ; wanted to eat him out and finger him and grip his thighs still as he tortured his prostate; wanted so badly to fuck him, to feel him convulse around him all warm and tight, to fuck him bent and spread and balanced over him; wanted to explore the way he’d gone all red and evasive the night everyone was sharing kinks, to see if he did want to be choked, if he’d moan so prettily if Draco spanked him, if he’d let him tie his wrists with his red and golden tie, just once, just to try it, or cover his eyes with his own tie to match the green of his irises. Wanted, wanted, wanted so desperately that the forms and scenarios and sensations flashed so quickly they blended into pink and blurry and dangerously urgent, the type of growing heat that doesn’t only burst to flames but explodes. 

Not like he’d say all of this. Even if he were sure Harry would want to hear it, he didn’t know if he _could_ \- saying the words aloud might be the last spark before he combusted. 

He settled for a little taste of it instead. 

‘We _were_ in the middle of something the other night, weren’t we?’ 

Harry’s eyes widened. His throat convulsed as he swallowed.

‘We were.’ 

‘It would certainly-’ Draco began, impatiently tugging on Harry’s shirt to bite and suck on his collarbone, ‘be very telling in terms of expressing your consent.’ 

Harry huffed a laugh. ‘I’m sure it would. I just-’ he broke off, biting his lip. He didn’t seem very happy with himself when he spoke. ‘I’ve never done it before.’ 

‘I’m aware. I did say I’d teach you.’

‘I know,’ Harry shoved absently at Draco’s chest, twisting fingers in his robes. ‘I meant that this might not be the best place to do it.’ 

Draco looked around. The dust seemed like quite a bearable inconvenience now that he was presented with the possibility of Harry sucking him off.

‘There’s a bed. Already a step up from the other night.’ 

‘We had a bloody door that night.’

Draco’s laugh was fond. ‘You really need that door, don’t you?’ 

‘Don’t you?’ Harry droned, staring at him pointedly. And Draco really didn’t, wasn’t at all bothered with the possibility of someone catching him as he disgraced the Boy Who Lived, thought it actually had the potential to be quite satisfying - cathartic, in a way, after years of discretion - if only Harry didn’t throw a fit about it. But it seemed quite clear that Harry wouldn’t like that answer. He most likely wanted to keep it a secret: screaming his name in a vacant bathroom with music deafening the crowd beyond the walls was one thing; having one of his close friends _witness_ it was something else. The thought of Harry being ashamed of him clenched tightly inside of Draco, but he didn’t exactly resent him for it, nor did he plan to throw it in his face. Besides, some little note of insecurity in Harry’s eye, begrudged and soft and so needing to be swayed, made bitterness impossible. 

He wasn’t quite sure if open gentleness was allowed yet, however.

'Worried you'll suck, Potter? Because that is quite the point.’ 

‘No, you arse,’ Harry, even in his barest moments, could tip his chin up in challenge. ‘I actually think I’ll be quite good.’ 

Draco snorted. Harry’s words made heat curl low inside him. ‘I do as well,’ he whispered, trailing back up to kiss his lips, ‘I think you’ll excell it. For now, though, you could stay still and let _me_ blow you.’ 

‘No. Your lip.’ 

‘Worried you’ll get blood on your cock, Potter?’ 

‘I was actually worried you’d hurt yourself,’ Harry rolled his eyes, ‘But if you want to be a tosser about it, then sure. Suck me off, Malfoy.’ 

The tone - the bloody _order_ , the way Harry was looking at him like he wanted Draco to _eat_ him - made Draco shudder. He did reckon, though, from a practical view, that any blowjob he’d give in that state would be subpar. Enthusiasm would only get him so far, after all. He set out to undo Harry’s jeans and tug them midtigh, then the same with his underwear. Harry’s dick bobbed up unceremoniously, flushed a lovely red, urgent and begging for attention. Draco very primly kept his hands on Harry’s hips. 

‘Malfoy, for fu-’ 

‘Harry, Malfoy, you up there?’ 

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Draco groaned, dropping his head so their foreheads clashed together with a slight sting. ‘Are your friends always _everywhere_?’ 

Harry’s laugh was breathless. ‘I guess so. You answer, I’m a bit-’ he brought a hand to his cock, stroking it once. ‘-Yeah, busy.’ 

Draco slapped his hand away. ‘None of that if I can’t join in,’ he stated, smirking at Harry’s half-hearted glare. He lifted his head again to shout, ‘We’re here. What do you want?’ 

There was a beat of silence - in which Draco had to pin Harry’s hand to the mattress, because the git had no shred of self-control - before they heard Ron shout back: 

‘We’re leaving.’ 

‘Alright. We’ll come down.’ 

He looked back at Harry. There was a shifting conflict in his eyes - frustration, the still prominent shine of arousal and a dispiriting hint of shame. 

‘Well? Get off,’ he said, impatient. Draco moved tersely, untangling their robes while Harry tried to push his erection down and button up his jeans. He gathered Ron’s voice had freed Harry of whatever spell he’d been under, that he’d go down now and pretend none of it had happened like he had before, that he’d proceed to spend the rest of the night giggling with Neville instead of talking to _him_ … then Harry, paradoxical in nature, caught him by the shoulder and kissed him lightly. ‘We really should do this again. You know, when we’re actually alone.’ 

‘Yeah, Potter?’ Draco could feel his smile spread against Harry’s lips. ‘Somewhere with a door?’

Harry chuckled, pressing another soft kiss - and really, Draco would die from how tender it all felt - to the corner of his mouth.

‘And very thick walls.’ 

‘I look forward to it,’ Draco murmured, trying to sound less emotional than he felt. He failed: the words came out all quiet and sweet and ever patient, the humble loyalty of the lovesick. Harry, the twat, smiled something crooked and amused, like he _knew_ , and Draco was sure he’d tease him for it - surely call him ‘mate’ again, or mention goddamn Finnigan, or some other casual imposition of friendship that’d bring Draco’s ego properly down -, but he said nothing of the sort. Instead, he asked, officially dispeling the gentle intimacy:

‘How much blood d’you get on my face?’ 

It was a hassle to clean the faint red smudges from his skin. Dizzying as well, since Draco was entirely too aware he’d trailed those lines with his own lips just a few moments ago. 

‘Would you quit squirming? It’s not like you’re unacquainted with my saliva.’ 

‘Shut the fuck up and hurry, Malfoy.’

They went down after a couple of minutes, outerwear strategically bunched in front of their crotches and gazes stubborn on the steps. Harry was nursing the bottle of rum they’d left on the vanity. He didn’t actually seem that different from usual - his hair was a rat’s nest, his cheeks a precious shade of pink, but wasn’t that the norm? Draco ought to look much worse, so far from his composed demeanour, so raw with pitiful emotion. But it wasn’t like he could hide it so easily, was it? Because Harry was now all closed walls and angled corners, but a moment ago he’d been kissing him so softly, and telling him they should do it again, making a fucking _plan_ of it, like this could be something regular, like they could fuck or date or _something_ , and after years of dreaming it was very difficult to be bloody nonchalant about it. 

He tried, in any sense. Smoothed his features into some parody of calm when he saw Ron waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. 

‘Took you long enough,’ he grumbled, leaning heavily against the bottom banister. 

‘Where are the others?’ asked Harry.

‘Waiting for you outside, _freezing_.’ 

‘They ought to have waited here, then,’ Harry shrugged. They’d both gotten to the ending of the stairs, trying not to touch in the narrow step. 

For one second, Draco could see Ron’s mouth contort easy and fluid, ready to spout some lazy comeback, the type of rudeness only natural for friends. It opened like that, then closed into something completely different, tense and sudden. 

‘Harry.’ 

‘Yeah, mate?’ 

‘Wipe your fucking chin.’ 

It was Draco’s first instinct to freeze; Harry’s to laugh, high and shocked and lovely. 

‘I- yeah,’ Harry swiped a thumb under his bottom lip, where the faintest layer of red had lingered. ‘Thanks.’ 

‘Hermione!’ 

‘Ron,’ Harry urged, leaning forward to catch him by the shoulder. ‘Don’t tell her.’ 

‘Oh, I’m bloody not,’ Ron said, a breath of disbelieving laughter escaping him like the very notion was preposterous. ‘I’m going to go meet her and forget all about… whatever this is.’ 

He turned in a frantic swing and walked out the brittle door. A wisp of excited chatter from outside was heard before the door creaked closed again. Draco’s gaze followed the movement disinterestedly - in his mind, crisp and loud in the promise of nightmares to come, Harry’s words played back and forward: ‘don’t tell her’. That was the supplicant tone of terrible secrets. That was the urgency of undisclosed fetiches and affairs and petty, embarrassing crimes. That was the type of frenzied rush that bleeds into fear. That was proof - because Harry had been too tender before, and the world had been too pink and hopeful, and Draco should know better by now - that whatever Harry was offering was a deal beyond walls and in hushed words. 

But Harry had been proving him wrong all night. Shifting between states since Draco had found him in the moonlit room. Unpredictable only because Draco was too in love and too expectant. 

‘I guess that saves an awkward conversation at least.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘With Ron,’ Harry cocked his head. A frown settled slowly on his face. ‘Did you not want anyone to know?’ 

‘I don’t care in the faintest,’ Draco bit out sourly, not quite looking at him. ‘Clearly you do.’

Harry scoffed. ‘The minute they do they’ll start pestering me about sex. I’m not-’ he waved a hand vaguely between them, obviously rethinking what he would say. ‘Don’t be dense, Malfoy.’ 

‘Am I supposed to know what on earth you mean by that?’ 

‘You’re overthinking something,’ Harry’s voice wavered between a whisper and a shout. ‘Look, can I just-’ he sighed, glanced at the door and caught Draco in a quick kiss, more aggressive than anything, a kiss whose purpose was in itself, a millisecond of pressure before he was pulling away. ‘I _can_ do that, right?’ 

‘You bloody idiot,’ Draco whispered before closing the distance again, sucking Harry’s bottom lip between his own as he backed him against the decrepit wall. When he withdrew - just an inch, enough that he could talk - his voice had gone hoarse. ‘We can do that whenever you’d like.’ 

Harry’s smile grew wide. ‘We’re fine, then?’ 

‘Yes. I reckon Ron isn’t, though.’ 

‘He’ll live,’ Harry snorted. He finally went down that last step. ‘Come on, before someone interrupts us again.’ 

Harry left, robes swirling black and thick around them, walking out into the dark night. Draco followed as well, joining the little group - and it was the strangest thing, for a smile seemed to be lurking an atom away from his lips, resisting the urge to break free, hanging always behind his skin; like the moment he dared smile this hesitant happiness within him would be obvious, and the universe would notice and sweep it - and everything that had caused it - far from his reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	13. Revisiting the Potions Classroom

With the enlightenment of time, dissuading excitement and dulling perspectives with every ticking second, the memory of that surreal night dimmed down into something much more understandable. By the end of the weekend, and sobered under the tepid sunlight, Draco had already analyzed the entirety of the evening in so many different ways that he could strip down each digressing glimmer of hope and stick only with the facts. 

Harry was only tipsy that night - that was the first one. He’d told Draco that they should do it again. Kiss again, fuck again, Draco didn’t care for the specifics. That was fact number two. Ron knew. He’d seen it and looked properly disapproving and ran off. Harry hadn’t cared: he’d kissed him despite it. Numbers three and four, respectively. 

It was all incredibly optimistic, which was rare for facts. Granted, Draco wasn’t too experienced with romance, but he could recognize that they were getting into _some_ sort of it. Harry had looked _fond._ And he’d taken initiative - that was something Draco couldn’t quite shake from his mind whenever he closed his eyes. So, Draco found it safe to say that, after years of pining, Harry and he weren’t enemies nor polite acquaintances nor platonic friends. They were something else entirely. Something _more_. 

The problem was the lack of definition of it all. Draco liked order, and labels could be extremely reassuring. So, if they weren’t boyfriends, and they weren’t quite friends with benefits, what were they? When Harry had suggested they should do it again, he’d done it in the vague tone of someone throwing an idea into the air to see how they like it. It lacked details. There was no protocol. Draco doubted he was allowed to go ahead and kiss him whenever he crossed the tosser in the halls, no matter how lovely he seemed. He always ended up ogling him silently. Harry never looked back. 

Then, one cold and uninteresting morning, at the end of Charms class, Harry broke the silence between them. 

‘D’you need help with your books?’ he asked, fit into the narrow space between their desks, fingers thrumming on the edge of Draco’s. 

Draco very primly pretended that he hadn’t been staring at Harry’s back all class, and that his presence there at least _somewhat_ surprised him. 

‘No. Was that an excuse to talk to me?’ 

‘It was an excuse to be hanging at your desk until everyone else gets out.’ 

Draco suppressed a smile. ‘By all means then, help me with my books.’ 

Harry helped by absent-mindedly creating a pile - untidy, using the smallest books as a base, because he truly had no concept of order. Draco, on his part, left his chair to sit on the desk behind him instead, crossing his arms as he watched the others slowly filter out the room. When they were finally alone, Harry spoke:

‘Are you busy tonight?’ 

‘Not especially.’ 

‘Are any Slytherins planning on sneaking out of the dorms?’ 

Draco huffed, an eyebrow raised in impatience.

‘Did you wake up feeling cryptic this morning?’ 

‘Just answer the bloody question, Malfoy,’ Harry snorted. He was taking apart the pile of books now, lean fingers treading over their spines, and Draco was assaulted by the thought that he had _pinned_ that very hand to a mattress a few nights ago. 

‘I don’t know. I’d wager not.’ 

‘Good,’ Harry smiled. ‘We should meet, then. In the Potions classroom.’ 

‘Why there?’ 

‘Will you go?’ 

‘Of course I’ll bloody go,’ Draco rolled his eyes. There was nothing in this world that would make him miss it - every fiber in his body was already coiling with excitement. ‘I’d just like to know why you chose the actual coldest classroom in the entire school.’ 

Harry chuckled. ‘Because,’ his eyes took on a mischievous twinkle. ‘No one likes to go about in the dungeons. Plus, after Ron threw that helmet in it, anyone who’s caught there again will be screwed.’

Draco frowned. ‘You do understand those are both reasons _not_ to go there?’

Harry drew a wicked smirk, leaning over Draco’s desk so he was tauntingly close.

‘No. They’re reasons why _we_ won’t get interrupted.’ 

And he’d said it, Draco knew, with the explicit purpose of making _ideas_ rise in his mind. Said it with the subtlest hint of suggestion and already with an overarch of smugness, for he _knew_ what effect it would have. Knew Draco would go mad with it. 

But it wasn’t like Draco could just lean over the rest of the way and kiss him. The Charms classroom, with its walls stacked with forgotten library books, its desks harbouring perpetual mounts of lost quills and professor Flitwik forever hurrying in and out, wasn’t exactly the discreetest of places. 

Besides, as it seemed, he’d have the opportunity to kiss him later. 

So, Draco leaned away from the temptation and simply asked: 

‘What time?’ 

They set it and Harry sauntered off with his little amused smile. Draco’s books were scattered all over the desk. He couldn’t quite bring himself to mind. 

The rest of the day was an agony of expectation. Time dripped too slow; the sun, surely in some stubborn fit, refused to go down. He finished his book, then had to reread the pages, having realized that he’d barely paid mind to the ending. When the night finally came, he’d gotten himself into a fit of nerves - after all, this was the first time they’d do anything sober. There was a conscious difference between fooling around drunk in bathrooms and bloody abandoned houses, and meeting up in school without a drip of liquor. This was planned, and unignorable, and all too likely to go wrong. 

He considered changing shirts, was halfway through sliding off it before he changed his mind, sat in the common room until everyone had turned in and the flames had gone out and passed the time by watching the lazily swirling waters of the lake. When the hour approached, he gingerly walked out, making sure the entrance morphed to smooth stone once more before heading down to the Potions classroom. 

The corridor was deserted. The classroom door was firmly shut. Draco leaned against one of the walls, brow furrowed and arms wrapped around himself. He’d resolved - perhaps presumptuously, but it wasn’t like Harry had been _subtle_ \- to wear as little clothes as possible. He hadn’t expected Harry to make him wait in the freezing fucking halls. 

After around five minutes, the door opened with a low creak. Harry peered out. 

‘You’re a bloody idiot, you know that? Come in.’ 

Draco huffed, though he stepped in all the same. A tight, painful knot of anxiety inflated at the base of his throat as the door swung closed behind them.

‘How was I supposed-’

Harry cut him off with a firm kiss, pushing him against the door. Draco’s back snapped against the wood, his hands fell instantly to Harry’s hips - and his lip had healed, and he could kiss _right_ this time, hungry pressure and a seeking tongue, a wicked bite that made Harry wince away. 

‘You did that to shut me up, didn’t you?’ 

‘Can you blame me?’ Harry smiled slyly. ‘It works wonders.’

He stepped out of Draco’s grasp and walked further into the room - it was scarcely lit by a few enchanted candles poised perilously on the corners of the crammed shelves, casting eerie reflections in the jars of minerals, herbs and animal parts. It was a strange sight, all the desks clear and vacant. Made the room feel dead. When he turned back to Draco, he looked unsure. 

‘It’s not the best.’ 

‘No, it’s not,’ Draco agreed. As he was wont to, though his nerves were still thrumming loud and high-strung, he chased him into the center of the room. 

‘Well, it’s not the worst.’ 

‘Isn’t it?’ 

‘Oh fuck off,’ Harry bit out, shifting his weight from foot to foot. ‘Better than the Shrieking Shack.’ 

‘Potter,’ Draco said, stretching his arm on some reckless impulse to catch Harry’s and pull him closer. ‘We could do it in the owlery for all I care.’ 

Harry laughed, soft and bright-eyed, resting his hands in the crooks of Draco’s elbows.

‘At least there’d be straw on the floor,’ he said, toeing the cold stone. 

Draco smirked. Slowly, he coaxed Harry’s hips until they were flushed with his and linked his hands on his lower back.

‘Are you planning on kneeling then, Potter?’ 

And he’d asked it in a taunting tone, but the very thought of it made him falter. Harry on his knees for him: he didn’t really know if he could cope. 

‘Do you want me to?’ Harry asked - coy behind the tease, Draco could see it in his eyes, and wasn’t that absurd? 

‘That’s the bloody stupidest question you’ve ever asked,’ he breathed out, pulling him into another kiss. Slower than before, no less firm. Harry giggled against his lips, trying to suppress the sound, and enlaced his neck. He felt euphoric, having Harry in his arms like this, gentle in the beginnings of heat, intimate and hushed and without the urgent worry of being interrupted - this, he thought, was how it would feel if they were in a real relationship. 

Digging nails into his back, Draco walked them blindly against one of the desks, not bothering to break the kiss. Harry had been precisely as presumptuous as him - no robes, only the thin white uniform shirt, the flimsiest barrier keeping his fingers, lips, tongue from plains of gorgeous skin… the thought made him groan into Harry’s mouth, a ragged sound pitifully premature in the situation. 

‘Malfoy,’ Harry moaned, clawing between his shoulder blades. ‘I- wait.’ 

Draco didn’t really, instead starting on the stubborn buttons of Harry’s shirt. 

‘I swear, if you tell me to check the bloody door-’

Harry huffed a laugh. ‘No. It’s just… Where the fuck is my desk?’ 

Draco sighed, dropping his head to Harry’s shoulder. Figures the git wouldn’t maintain one line of focus even then. His lips caught wetly on the warm skin of his neck when he spoke:

‘Have you forgotten that this isn’t class, Potter?’

Harry just shimmied away from the tight space between Draco’s body and the edge of the desk, dragging him by the arm towards his own.

‘See, I want to make at least _one_ good memory here,’ he said between open-mouthed kisses. ‘Come friday I’m going to fail Potions.’ 

‘What, Slughorn’s little test?’ 

‘It’s hardly _little_ \- bloody hell, would you fucking… these buttons are fucking sewn on…’ Harry complained. Draco snorted and took his shirt off over his head. The cold air prickled at his bare skin; Harry’s hands were impossibly hot. ‘Anyways- here, yeah?’ 

‘Here,’ Draco agreed eagerly. ‘Whatever, Potter. Just take your shirt off as well,’ and as he said it he finished on the last of the buttons and yanked the fabric from Harry’s lean arms, discarding it on the floor. Harry’s chest was all pale with flushed patches - and there they were, bringing back a bitter hint of guilt, fading bruises forming patterns over his ribs. Draco traced a few with his fingers, a light touch over the healing blood vessels, following up the ridge of his sternum and to his nipples. They were small and pink and surrounded in sensitive, quivering muscle, and, in Draco’s dreams, they’d always been too flickering a construct to properly appreciate - now, with no shortness of time and the solidity of reality, Draco indulged himself by flicking one, then rubbing the pretty little bud until it hardened. 

‘Malfoy,’ Harry moaned, clutching Draco’s shoulders.

‘Bloody adorable, Potter,’ Draco breathed out, more to himself than anything, while he did the same to his other nipple. He just squirmed so perfectly, and moaned so prettily, and Draco wanted to do this every morning and every night and every lazy noon until he died. 

‘Yeah, fuck, you have to move if you want me to do it.’ 

‘Do what?’ 

‘Don’t be fucking dense, Malfoy.’ 

‘Don’t be such a prude, then,’ Draco smirked, flicking one of the nubs again to make him hiss. ‘Say it.’ 

‘You’re such a bloody child,’ Harry grumbled, trying to look some semblance of cross even despite the ridiculously endearing keening noises that he kept trying to suppress. ‘Let me get on my knees so I can suck you off, you arsehole.’ 

‘Fuck,’ Draco moaned. Harry had the audacity to look smug, so Draco squeezed both his nipples at the same time - a bit viciously, but the twat deserved it -, earning him an actual goddamn _whimper_. Draco wanted to bottle it. ‘Come on then, Potter.’ 

He inched away just enough that they could change positions - Draco with the table edge digging in the back of his thighs, Harry closing him in. And then Harry slithered down, shirtless and flushed and panting, that oxymoronic elegance brimming with energy, holding the waistband of his slacks, and Draco’s cock pulsed painfully hard in its confines. Harry was close enough to breathe against it, such an irresistible tease with his red spit-slick lips, and, when Draco brought a hesitant hand to grab at his hair and Harry looked up at him, Draco couldn’t even believe it was real. 

‘Malfoy,’ Harry warned as he eased down the waistband. ‘You can’t make fun of me. I’ll leave you with your dick out if you do.’ 

Draco scoffed. ‘Surprisingly, Potter, I don’t plan to piss you off while my cock’s between your teeth,’ he said. Then, seeing that Harry had stopped, he ran a thumb softly through his forehead. ‘It’s hardly possible to fuck up, Potter. Lips like that, you’re practically made for it.’ 

That at least got him a small laugh; the tension eased from his shoulders, and Harry fully drew Draco’s slacks and underwear down, making his cock jump out an angry red. Harry put one hand around it -the first time he’d done it to Draco, the first time he’d done it to _an_ _yone_ \- and stroked it once from root to tip. 

‘What the actual hell do I do, Malfoy?’ Harry asked, a soft laugh escaping him. The way his eyelashes fluttered as he looked up at him - so trusting, so lovely - made Draco’s cock twitch in his hand. And he’d like to instruct him, to guide him through it with gentle words and clear sentences, but he was pretty sure that verbalizing any of his thoughts - ‘Lick my cock, Harry’ - would make him come on the spot. 

‘D’you remember what I did to you?’ he said instead, voice a bit shaky as he stared at his own dick in between Harry’s fingers. ‘Do that.’ 

Harry kept still, a little smile on his lips. ‘It’s going to be shit, isn’t it?’ 

‘It’s bloody not, Potter. I’ll help you through it.’ 

Harry nodded a bit absently, let out a quickly fading chuckle and leaned down to lick experimentally along the length. He looked _focused_ \- Harry Potter on his knees, figuring out how to properly suck him off - and Draco was embarrassingly close to the edge. 

‘See,’ he managed, slumping against Harry’s desk, ‘Wasn’t too hard, was it?’ 

Harry snorted and tried again, using the flat of his tongue, catching on a drop of precum that had bloomed on the slit. Then, with a little emboldened twinkle in his eyes, he wrapped his fingers around the base and guided the tip to his mouth. 

‘Fuck, fuck, Potter, yes, like that- teeth, cover them. There you go,’ Draco was a rush of hushed words, delighting in the warm wetness beyond Harry’s lips - and he twisted his fingers firmly into his hair, decadently keeping him there until he got used to the sensation. When he eased his grip, Harry ventured just a little bit further, slacking his jaw and taking him for a few seconds more before he withdrew. 

His hand went to take off his glasses - Draco caught it by the wrist. 

‘Don’t you bloody dare.’

‘Why?’ 

‘I like them.’ 

Harry snorted. ‘Do you really? Now or all the time?’ he asked with a little smile, stroking Draco fully again. Draco imagined he was using the type of movements he used on himself at night, tight, sure, with a Silencing charm wrapped complicitly around his bed - it was deliriously arousing, and a strange sense of intimate. The slick layer of saliva smoothed each stroke, dimming the friction to a subtle edge. 

‘All the time. They look good on you, Potter,’ he managed between bitten off groans, and Harry took him into his mouth again like a bloody _reward_ for his honesty, fingers firmly circling the half he couldn’t swallow around. He bobbed his head once, slowly, testing, the sweetest little thing, then let out a moan that reverberated around Draco’s cock - and Draco _knew_ he’d like sucking cock, knew he’d be the type to see the power in kneeling, knew he’d fight for control even with his mouth full and a drip of drool in the corner of his lips and his hair tightly twisted around Draco’s fingers. He’d _known_ and now the confirmation rested flushed and breathless between his legs, and Draco suddenly wished that Harry would end up with a girl whenever he got bored of him - maybe even bloody Ginny, so he could marry her and spend his life giving head to her all delicate and soft, and no one but Draco would ever get to see him stuffed full, his throat convulsing, breathless and flushed, his nipples still hardened into desperate rosy peaks.

But maybe he wouldn’t get bored of him at all. Draco could allow himself to hope, couldn’t he? They were good together, they were _perfect_ together - surely Harry ought to feel it too. 

Harry withdrew with an obscene, wet sound. He seemed to be holding in the urge to laugh, a smile teasing his lips. 

‘Yeah, alright, I’m gonna- Malfoy, if you _say_ anything, I swear-’

‘I told you I’m not going to make fun of you, Potter,’ Draco scoffed. ‘You’re _supposed_ to look ridiculous.’ 

This time Harry laughed fully. He looked _giddy_ about the whole thing, like he was learning a new Quidditch technique or a strange hex, eyes twinkling in a mix of focus and excitement. 

‘Fuck, okay,’ he breathed, shifting a little on his feet before swallowing him as far as he could go, almost immediately starting to gag but holding him there all the same with little breaths through his nose, an edge to his gaze, stubborn and fierce and wanton. Every pretense of finesse abandoned, all hesitante foregone, just the sinful warmth of his mouth and the slick of spit running down his lips and an utterly unforgettable obscene expression. 

‘Potter, bloody hell,’ Draco groaned, trying to keep his tone hushed. He gripped the edge of the cold desk for support as Harry swallowed around him and his tongue, as Harry shifted it in his mouth, flicked over his slit. It felt _incredible_ , all the more because it was Harry bloody Potter, because Draco had loved him for years and now he was here, kneeling, drooling over his cock and unashamedly wanton for it, and the symbiosis of sight and sensation was making his legs shake, his orgasm near pathetically fast. ‘Fucking beautiful, Potter, fuck- Merlin, you’re perfect, I-’ I love you, he meant to say, but the sound was strangled at the top of his throat, pushed sourly down, leaving him painfully vulnerable - and Harry looked up at him, all questioning eyes, so soft and _gorgeous_ , and Draco couldn’t bear it. ‘Up, up, Potter, come on,’ he urged, voice ragged, pulling Harry up by the hair. Harry dropped his cock with the most unbelievable reluctant noise, and Draco caught him for a desperate kiss. 

He could taste himself on Harry’s tongue, and the saliva coating Harry’s lips made the whole thing impossibly filthy. His cock, slick with spit, grinded against Harry’s bare stomach, sticking pearls of precum to the overheated skin, and Draco wanted to smear it in, embed it there like some childish mark of possession, but he couldn’t bring himself to untangle his fingers from Harry’s hair where they were gripping sharply and angling his head just right, fussing with it, keeping him in place. Harry let out a string of moans, too surprised to properly fight for control of the kiss. Draco abused his mouth, plunged a demanding tongue inside to taste all over, nipped persistent and vicious at the bottom lip of this boy he loved, this boy he now, at least for the night, could hold in his arms. 

‘Thanks for the breather,’ Harry chuckled against his lips. 

Draco hummed, running a soothing tongue over the flesh he’d been biting.

‘Ready to go again?’ 

‘I was never _not_ ready, you’re the one who pulled me off,’ Harry huffed, all stubborn confidence. It made Draco smile. 

‘Well, next time I’ll just keep you there until you choke, how’s that?’ he mused. Harry’s cheeks went a shade redder, his nails digging crescent moons into Draco’s shoulders. 

‘Yeah, fuck, let me.’ 

‘I’m not stopping you.’ 

At that, Harry went down to his knees again. Draco’s cock twitched against the cold frame of his glasses, leaving a bit of slickness shining there - Harry Potter, utterly debauched with come on his glasses. Draco was very glad he’d told him to keep them on. 

Like the previous time, Harry took Draco’s dick eagerly, too much too fast like he did any challenge. Just like in any challenge, he thrived that way, working on reckless impulse and sure instinct, covering his teeth as Draco had told him and moving until Draco could feel himself jerk against the back of his throat. Harry made a strangled noise, eyes tearful, and tried to shift, but Draco kept him still by his hair. 

‘Like this, Potter. Let me see you gag.’ 

In response, Harry’s eyes lifted in the sharpest edge; he fought against Draco’s hold, but not to withdraw - he inched himself even closer, until Draco’s cock was entering the narrow, hot channel of his throat. He did gag then, and Draco let him go, but he didn’t stray too far. Through a bunch of laboured pants he kept licking along Draco’s cock, sucking lightly at the head like he couldn’t bear not to press his lips against it. At the sight, Draco couldn’t help but take himself in hand, moaning as he did it. He was close to the edge again - he reckoned he wasn’t meant to last when he was with Harry. And how was that a thought he got to have now, not fantasy but fact? How was it that he got to come not from Harry’s picture in his mind but from his mouth and fingers and precious little sounds? Draco knew the universe’s ways: it worked in a balanced succession of gifts and tests. He figured that, after this, a hellmouth should open just under his feet. 

Not like he minded. The future was a fickle, irrelevant thing when the present was so heavenly. 

Holding the base of his cock with one hand and Harry’s hair with the other, he traced the head slowly along Harry’s slack lips, leaving an unsteady string of precum. When Harry looked up at him, his eyes were wide and desperate. 

‘Remember when you told me I’d get it when I tried it? I get it.’ 

Draco snorted, then bit out a moan when Harry slid his tongue out mischievously to tease his slit. 

‘Merlin, Potter, why do you ever do anything besides this?’ 

‘I've got classes. And Quidditch.’ 

‘I’ll get you thrown off the bloody team, then.’ 

Harry laughed, idly nuzzling his cock. At this point, Draco was considering just stroking himself over the edge - just twice, all it would take - and coming all over Harry’s soft, pretty face. 

‘And class?’ 

‘You never pay attention anyway.’

Harry hummed. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he mused, replacing Draco’s hand with his own and giving him one firm stroke. ‘This is definitely more fun than Alchemy,’ he smirked, and then he was swallowing him down again. 

The sudden suction made him muffle a sound deep in his throat, a low and primitive thing akin to a growl; and the way his fingers worked in tandem with his mouth in a frenzy of stimulation, the sight of him red-faced and eager to please, the entire ecstasy of the situation pushed him right up to brink of his climax - pushed Harry too, because he was getting loud, or trying to, tears perfectly round in the corners of his eyes and neck tendons straining as he moaned long and desperate around Draco’s cock. 

‘Potter- Fuck, _fuck_ -’ Draco stuttered, bucking mindlessly against Harry, who took it in stride, moving with him and humming even lower from his throat, a needy sound that reverberated through the whole of Draco’s length. It was those vibrations that tipped him over: he spilled down Harry’s throat, twitching against hot muscle, a hand on the back of Harry’s head to keep him in place. Harry’s gaze was unfocused, his grip weak on Draco’s hips, his breaths ragged through his nose. Spit and come bubbled down his bottom lip, glistening in his chin and forming a steadily dripping stream by the time Draco’s orgasm subsided. 

With a shaky breath, he pulled his cock out from between Harry’s slack lips and pulled him up. Harry’s legs were gelatinous little things - he crumbled softly into Draco’s chest, arms winding around his neck, and laid an absent, open-mouthed kiss on his collarbone. Draco immediately pulled him closer with a hand on his lower back, ignoring the way his spent cock ran through Harry’s warm skin. 

‘You alright, Potter?’ 

Harry only hummed.

‘Potter? Was I too rough?’ 

That got him a scoff right under his chin.

‘Fuck off, Malfoy.’ 

Draco sighed. They were stuck in these molds of their past selves: too distrustful to accept gentleness, too cautious to admit weakness. 

He placed a soft hand on his nape, coaxing his head up so their eyes could meet. 

‘I didn’t mean to.’ 

At first, Harry’s features were closed, dazed, impossible to read. Slowly, they gained colours and lines, the telltale crickling of a fire, and he smirked. 

‘Quit worrying. I loved it.’ 

At the genuinity of his words, Draco’s smile grew as well - too fond, too vulnerable, his orgasm having rendered him tired and open. He kissed Harry’s forehead, right over his right eyebrow, then under his eye, then his mouth, slipping his tongue inside. 

‘You tasting yourself on me, Malfoy?’ Harry murmured, eyes twinkling, an echo of their first night in the bathroom of the Three Broomsticks. It made Draco’s heart clench to think that Harry might remember it as vividly as he did. 

‘Yes,’ he whispered, nipping lazily at Harry’s bottom lip, tasting the spit and come there. He really wished they’d done this on a bed; envisioned them falling asleep somewhere soft and safe, entangled in each other’s arms. ‘You swallowed all of it.’ 

Harry snorted. ‘Not like you were giving me another option.’ 

‘Did you want another option?’

‘No.’ 

‘Worked out for everyone, then,’ Draco smirked before dipping his hand down to search Harry’s crotch. ‘You hard, Potter? Want me to take care of it?’ 

To his surprise, Harry squirmed away sharply.

‘No.’ 

Draco frowned, cold fear coiling inside him.

‘No, you don’t want me to take care of it?’ 

There was a pulse of silence. Then, almost reluctantly, Harry inched closer until their chests were flushed once more. 

‘No, I’m not hard. I kind of...’ he waved a hand around. ‘...took care of it myself.’ 

That surely wasn’t what Draco had expected. He’d have guessed the unfamiliarity of the experience would have softened his erection, even despite how aroused he’d looked, how wanton and pink as he swallowed around his cock… but the thought that Harry had been so desperate that he couldn’t resist waiting, that he’d taken himself in hand as he sucked Draco off, that maybe he hadn’t even bothered to unbutton his slacks and simply palmed himself through the fabric, frantic and red-eyed and so utterly lustful... that was too perfect and too unlikely for Draco to actually consider. 

Did you really? Let me see.’ 

‘What? Sod off,’ Harry managed through a surprised laugh; and he was angling away again, but Draco grabbed him by one hip and unzipped his slacks deftly. They slid half down his thighs, revealing come-soaked underwear and the subtle outline of a very soft dick. 

‘Fuck,’ Draco breathed, running a finger through the dark wet patch. ‘Look at the mess you made.’ 

‘Would you quit touching?’

‘Would you quit whining? I’ll stop in a minute,’ Draco dismissed, still tracing the fabric over his cock. Harry twitched in overstimulation and Draco smirked, pressing a kiss to the shell of his ear. ‘You _really_ loved it, huh?’ 

‘Don’t get smug,’ Harry snorted, though he trailed off into a quiet moan as Draco cupped him with a tender touch. 

‘You know, it’s not really usual for people to like their first time giving head,’ he went on, circling a bit of the damp cloth over Harry’s sensitive cockhead. ‘You’re just made to suck me off, aren’t you?’ 

‘I told you I’d be good at it,’ Harry’s smile was teasing. ‘Now get your fucking hand away, it’s not like I’m coming twice.’ 

Draco laughed but obliged. His eyes lingered on the patch of come - because Harry had actually been so desperate from blowing him that he’d come in his bloody pants, and Draco still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it - until Harry tucked himself away and stepped backwards, officially breaking the intimacy. 

‘Where on earth did you put my fucking shirt?’ 

‘I didn’t put it anywhere. I _threw_ it,’ Draco retorted as he zipped up his own slacks. When he was done he hopped onto the desk, running his fingers absently through the scratched wood. He hated the thought of walking back to the cold common room and slipping into bed alone; hated the thought of parting from Harry so cleanly and abruptly, like these moments where they were together belonged to someone else instead of bleeding seamlessly into his life. On impulse, he found himself wanting to delay the end. ‘Do you reckon it’ll be better or worse to have class here now that this happened?’ 

‘Can’t get much worse,’ Harry chuckled. He was doing up the buttons of his shirt - really, it was a shame to hide all that skin. 

Draco bit his lip, tapping his fingers on the desk. 

‘You know, Potter, it’s just Alihotsy. Slughorn’s test, I mean.’ 

Harry’s eyebrows raised. ‘What?’ 

‘He found some instructions for an old version of it. Got excited about it. That’s the test,’ Draco murmured. 

‘Well, how d’you know?’ 

‘He’s Slytherin’s head professor, Potter. He told all of us.’ 

‘McGonagall doesn’t tell us anything for Transfiguration,’ Harry countered, eyes flashing between anger and disbelief.

Draco forced a shrug, aiming for nonchalant:

‘The downside of having a House built on honour.’

Harry was still glaring, and Draco dropped his gaze to find his own shirt. He didn’t want Harry angry, didn’t want to dispel the brief sweetness between them so completely. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything - but it was so easy to forget loyalties when Harry was near, when he was overrun with the instinct to help _him._ After all, Draco knew he was bad at potions - the bloody idiot couldn’t be bothered to do his measurings twice, even with unicorn hair, which was such a fickle ingredient; he stirred clockwise when the instructions stated counter-clock, because ‘how in the bloody hell will the potion know?’; he got distracted and shook the cauldron with a restless knee, he hardly listened to Slughorn’s explanations and then, when he needed help, he’d ask people like _Pansy_ instead of asking _Draco_. Awful at it - and didn’t he want to become an Auror? He’d need an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on his N.E.W.T. It was difficult, therefore, with all of this on his mind, and the fond, intimate sight of Harry doing up his shirt under the dim candle light, and the irresistible urge to pull him closer again or kiss him or persuade him to sneak into the Slytherin commons with him or _something_ , anything to prolong their time together, to keep his mouth shut regarding Slughorn’s own indiscretions. 

‘What’d you say it was?’ Harry spoke at last.

‘Alihotsy. A variant of it, in any sense,’ he regarded Harry wearily. ‘Don’t go around telling your friends, Potter.’ 

Harry frowned slightly. The distance between them, though it was only a few steps, seemed impossible to overcome now. This was how friends talked - there was no need to be closer, it was bloody inconsequential chatter, and still Draco felt himself resentful of it. 

‘We’d just do some research beforehand. Slughorn wouldn’t know.’ 

Draco rolled his eyes. 

‘No offense, but I’ve as much faith in you Gryffindors as I do in the Whomping Willow.’ 

Harry scoffed, but he didn’t offer any retort. Instead, when he answered, his voice was a reluctant sort of resigned.

‘I guess I can’t tell Hermione either, can I?’ 

It figured that he’d try to do that: what good would the name Alihotsy do him if he didn’t find out how to brew it? It wasn’t like he’d manage it by himself - he’d need help. But Draco couldn’t very well let this get to her insufferably moral ears. Really, it’d been ludicrous to share this with a close friend of the known stickler that was Hermione Granger. 

‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t,’ he said. Then, lower, staring at his shoes and gripping white-knuckled onto the edge of the desk, he added, ‘I could teach you how to brew it, if you’re that worried about it.’ 

‘You could?’ 

Harry’s expression was one of skeptical surprise. Draco disliked it altogether: was it that inconceivable that he could be _nice_? He’d bought him those horrid treacle tarts twice now, hadn’t he? Perhaps that hadn’t quite translated just how nice Draco wanted to be - with foreheads kisses and hands smoothing down his clothes; walking him to class, carrying his fucking books, spoiling him, tethering him to the ground, his beacon of support and outlet for anger; a lackey, essentially, in his lovesickness - but it surely ought to have counted for _something_. 

‘Well, it’d be a shame for you to fail the test after creating such lovely memories here,’ Draco mused, a tentative smile on his lips. Harry, to his relief, huffed a little laugh. 

‘And when you say teaching,’ he started, his eyes twinkling as he stepped closer to grab at the sides of Draco’s shirt. ‘Do you mean you’ll be an arse the whole time?’

Draco chuckled. The sound came out a shade too breathless. He placed his hands lightly back on Harry’s hips. ‘Of course. But I assure you it’ll be very educational.’ 

‘Tutoring from the best in Potions, huh?’ Harry hummed, irresistibly close, that teasing smirk in his lips - lips still slick with stray droplets of spit and come, still raw red and swollen, so bloody beautiful Draco could feel heat pool at his stomach again. 

‘I won’t be a selfless tutor,’ Draco indulged himself by kissing those lewd lips softly, almost reverently, swiping his thumbs over sore hips. ‘I’ll expect you to suck up to me.’

Harry snorted and kissed back, just the briefest press of lips before he pushed away with his hands on Draco’s chest. ‘Thanks for helping,’ he murmured. 

There was a rush of reckless responses on the tip of Draco’s tongue, temptingly tender words he could utter so fluidly in the honeyed moment: sentiments of desperate love and ready devotion that were the utmost truth. They choked a moment before they turned to sound, dissolving into sugar, dripping right back down his throat. 

‘Just meet me here tomorrow, after Herbology. Can you manage that, Potter?’ 

Harry nodded, tapped him once above the sternum, this fond little thing before he stepped away. Their goodbyes were quick, Draco quietly debating whether he should kiss him goodbye until Harry, who was fussing with his shirt, flashed him a wave and scurried out the door before he could make a decision. With a sigh, Draco disenchanted the candles and left the classroom, making his way through the cold halls. It all felt colder now, lonelier with the memory of Harry’s skin still so present in his mind - and when he slipped into bed and idly trailed his fingers to the edges of the mattress, finding himself completely alone under suffocating sheets, he felt an overwhelming urge of sadness, a pang of despair, frightening in its intensity, like he’d never be able to sleep again unless he walked right up to Gryffindor’s dorms and tucked himself around the soft curve of Harry’s sleeping form, gently kissing him on the nape as a proper goodbye. 

When he did fall asleep, it was with the thought of that last contact between them: Harry’s fingers thrumming over his sternum, synching, for a single pulse, with the rhythm of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	14. Knotgrass and Alihotsy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, ok, I've been all busy beaver lately and so I didn't proofread this chapter as many times as I would have liked to, but hey, no beta, we die like men, am I right?
> 
> Useful note: Alihotsy is a potion that makes one laugh uncontrollably.
> 
> Enjoy~

'Is it so chivalrous not to kiss and tell?'

Pansy eyed him from the other side of the table, where she was buttering a piece of toast. 

‘You know it is. Tell me anyway.’ 

Draco smiled. He’d been smiling since he’d woken, a paradoxical little thing between sated and longing, as liquid and dazed as the pleasant ache in his bones. He ought to look like a fool, he reckoned. Draco Malfoy, the fallen prince of Death Eaters - what could he possibly have to smile about? Oh, but he felt light, deliriously so with the lingering dripping of endorphins from last night, the mesmerizing reminders of heat and skin, the thrilling thought that, come the end of Herbology, he’d see Harry again. 

‘Something happened. With him.’ 

‘Obviously with him,’ Pansy rolled her eyes. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be looking so pleased. Did you fuck him?’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Well, I hardly think he’s the type to fuck _you_.’ 

Draco snorted around a piece of fresh clementine. ‘We haven’t gotten there yet.’ 

‘Yet?’ Pansy quirked a brow. ‘You’re awful optimistic today, dear. It’s an odd look on you.’ 

And the way she stared at him confirmed it - like he’d been shaken by some sickness, raked by some worrying symptom only she could see. Like something dreadful would happen if she didn’t cure him soon. Draco understood: it was always difficult to see a friend swept up by hope. 

He shrugged. ‘I’m realistic. It just so happens that reality’s been good recently,’ he said - but he could hear the wistful lightness in his tone. There was nothing realistic in him left: he was all elegant rings and wedding chapels, distant wonderings of domesticity, casual kisses and serene promises of eternity. 

He was scared for himself, really. A bit of pessimism always tethered the soul.

Pansy spared him from his thoughts with a sharp call of his name. 

‘Do you plan on telling me anything else, or will you just sit there yearning?’

‘You know I’m not one for details.’ 

Pansy sighed, taking a sip of her tea. ‘You can be so painfully dull, darling. At least tell me what you did, if you didn’t fuck.’ 

Draco really did try not to smile. He didn’t want to seem lewd, wanted to preserve the warmth and intermittent sweetness of the night - but it hadn’t been intermittent, had it? Throughout the whole night there’d been something sugary in the air. Tenderness and a devoted notion of frailty. He’d cling to that in the innocence of the morning, and the filthier visions - Harry whimpering as he flicked his little nipples, the way his lips had glistened with his come, the desperate wet patch in his underwear - would be dug out in the privacy of his canopy bed. 

Still, there was no way to make it _sound_ innocent. And, with that thought, how could Draco not smile?

‘He blew me.’ 

‘Was he any good?’ 

‘He was perfect.’

Pansy snorted, feline eyes bright with humour.

‘You really are dull. Love’s taken all the fun out of you,’ she said, smile disappearing behind her mug as she took another sip of tea. When she was done, she tapped her nails once on the ceramic and asked, a bit quieter, more interested than amused, ‘Do you figure you’ll go to Hogsmeade with them again?’ 

Draco finished his clementine. He thought of the whirlwind of insanities which had happened in that quaint little village: finding Harry at the bathroom in Kettle Bottom, that first night; Harry wearing his coat, the bloody treacle tarts, and Harry’s smile - mischievous already, as if he _knew_ ; the drinking game, his fingers running across his scar, the phoenix glitter, Harry kissing him that first time, his pale hips writhing against the graffitied tiles. 

‘Perhaps. I hope so.’

‘When you do - if you do - tell them I’ll come along. Better yet, don’t tell them. I’ll come all the same.’

Draco frowned. ‘I thought you hated them.’ 

‘Most of them,’ Pansy said - and her smile was perfectly poised into the emptiest little thing, and Draco had known since first year that she only showed nothing when she had something to hide.

‘Who do you like, then?’ 

Pansy’s smile turned sharp. ‘You should know, dear, _I_ don’t kiss and tell.’ 

The matter was dropped altogether, despite Draco’s attempts to return to it. By the time they’d finished breakfast, Pansy was quite resolute in speaking only about class, and it was with a victorious smile that she stood at last to go to her Ancient Studies elective. Draco, on his part, hurried down to the greenhouses, his heart quickening with each step.

The eighth years still had class in Greenhouse Seven, working around the seventh year’s schedule. Through the wide leaves of potted knotgrass and the lazily coiling tentacles of a dazed Venomous Tentacula, he caught sight of Harry, chatting in a little circle with Ron and Hermione. His glasses were freshly clean, his hair poorly tamed, his expression one of lighthearted innocence, and he laughed and spoke in unintelligible sounds, too far from Draco, inaccessible under the mundane sunlight. He didn’t meet his gaze - never did, always impossibly evasive, infuriatingly carefree. When Professor Sprout shuffled in, two bags of dirt in her callused hands, Harry split off into his work group and turned his back to Draco, thus ensuring he’d be able to stare at nothing besides the stripe of bare skin on his neck for the rest of the lesson. It was cruel, really. Unfair that Draco was the only one that _looked_. Harry couldn’t possibly be so casual about the entire situation: sure, he might not love Draco, but he’d kissed him so softly, and smiled so warmly… and now they had this plan, the first time they’d meet in the daylight, and it had to have _some_ meaning - _Draco_ had to have some meaning. And he damn well deserved a _look_. 

It didn’t mean he’d get one, though. And that didn’t necessarily mean terrible things, did it? Harry could keep his back turned all he wanted and still be looking forward to their strange tutoring session as much as Draco. Fearing it as much as Draco. Obsessing over the previous night as well… maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about sucking Draco off, maybe he wanted to do it again, maybe he missed the taste of it; maybe he couldn’t wait until they were alone in that classroom again so he could press himself against Draco and kiss him senseless. 

Maybe. 

Maybe Draco could ask him. 

Now, however, there was little else to do besides digging nails into his workbench and pretending like his world was much the same and devoid of interest, like the love of his life hadn’t blown him a few hours ago, like they wouldn’t soon meet to work or fuck or talk or kiss or whatever on earth Harry wanted. 

He’d finally managed to put such thoughts away and concentrate on transplanting his infant Bouncing Bulb into a fresh pot when Ron walked up to him. 

‘Do you need more knotgrass?’

Draco spared him a side-eyed glance. He was sure the universe had sent him down there just to tease.

‘I don’t need _any_ knotgrass. Do you even know what the assignment is, Weasley?’ 

‘Let me rephrase - come get more knotgrass with me, you absolute bloody twat.’

That, at least, got Draco to fully face him. Banging an impatient fist on the corner of his workbench, Ron stood with an uncertain type of anger - pressing, intense and entirely purposeless. Overall, it was quite a standard look for Weasley. 

Draco gingerly placed the Bouncing Bulb back in the dirt. It burrowed down with a contented shiver. 

‘Lead the way.’ 

The pots of knotgrass were passed without the slightest bit of interest from Ron; instead, he walked right out the greenhouse and into the chilly air. 

‘You’re not the best at pretense, are you?’ Draco drawled. He shoved his hands in his pockets. Ron fiddled with the small pair of pruning shears he held in his. 

‘What d’you do last night?’ 

The question was curtly accusatory: there was no doubt there, only the frustration of something unconfirmed, and it’d be in his instinct to lie - always was, whenever questions sounded too much like interrogations, because that’s what he’d been _taught_ to do - but he didn’t _want_ to lie. Harry had kissed him on the bottom of the stairwell of the Shrieking Shack like he wasn’t a secret but simply a discretion. In such terms, was Draco not allowed to tell the truth? Ron already knew some of it, in any sense - how damnable would it be if Draco filled in some gaps? 

But he couldn’t, though he’d like to, though he itched to see Ron’s expression when he very bluntly told him he’d been getting a blowjob from his very best friend, because it was clear _Harry_ hadn’t told him. He wanted this gap empty. Draco was hopeless to oblige. 

‘I slept. You?’ 

‘Oh, come on, Malfoy. Were you with Harry?’ 

‘What is it with the questions, Weasley? Why on earth would I be with Potter?’ he asked, a bit sharp in the implicit dare for Ron to put it into words. 

Ron didn’t. Far be it that he verbalized what was already so loud in his conscience.

‘Are you being thick just for the sake of it? Harry went out last night - always does, but he always tells me he’s going. Well, I woke up, and he just wasn’t there,’ Ron ran a hand through his face, the rusty shears dangling from the other. ‘He wouldn’t tell me today either. I figured: he’s open about all his friends except you.’ 

Draco scoffed, the words settling sour in his ears. ‘That’s a bloody shit argument, Weasley. Maybe next time you and Potter should just keep your arses in bed and leave me out of it, yes?

Ron’s features tightened. The pruning shears swirled unsteady in his fingers - and how tragically Gryffindor would it be for Ron, who looked for whatever reason so cross, so quietly dark, to plunge them sticky and red into his thigh? 

‘You don’t have nightmares?’ 

The words, cold as they were, ought to have ached as sharp as the metal through his flesh. 

‘Of course I do. I’m just not lucky enough to wake up from them.’ 

There was a beat of silence. Ron stared at the shears; Draco let his own gaze wander back to the greenhouse, searching through the glass panels for his workbench and, further off, for any signs of a raven ash head. 

‘Does Harry?’ he asked at last, just to hear it, just to know more. The name - ‘Harry’, not ‘Potter’ - sounded too soft and too vulnerable coming from his mouth. 

‘How could he not?’ Ron sighed. ‘If you just told me you were with him - and I know you were, even though you’re both being dicks about it - I could quit worrying.’ 

Draco nodded. He could understand that: it was painful, really, caring for Harry. Constant, overwhelming, with so little return. 

‘Ron.’ 

‘Yes?’

‘You can quit worrying.’

Ron gave him a long look. Finally, his features eased, the guarded beginnings of a smile twitching in his lips. 

‘Well, what do you know, no knotgrass here.’

And the smile grew, faltered just shy of friendly, and then he was turning back to the greenhouse.

After a moment, Draco followed him in. What little focus he’d mustered was lost for the rest of the lesson; he’d have to return later to properly transplant his Bouncing Bulb. It hardly mattered, though - because when he’d walked in, across the leaves and stems and swaying heads of the other students, he’d seen Harry, and Harry had been staring back. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


The classroom still smelled faintly of fumes from first period when Draco got there. The cauldrons hadn’t been cleaned properly - likely first years. It lifted the question: should Draco pick one out and prepare it? Would it seem eager, were he to start before Harry got there? Was it _more_ eager if he waited? 

He was unsure of the etiquette, which was foolish. Draco knew Harry genuinely needed that lesson - it wasn’t a cover for anything obscene. Then again, the simple notion of helping Harry, innocent and brief as it was, brought him just as much anxiety. 

In the end, he chose to gather the necessary ingredients, placing them, after some consideration, on Harry’s desk. He ran a finger through the wood - the same wood he’d held onto as Harry swallowed around him - and smiled.

Harry walked in brushing snowflakes from his shoulders. 

‘Sorry, mate, came in through the Quidditch cave,’ he said. When he finally looked up at Draco, his eyes brightened. ‘Hey.’ 

Draco suppressed the utter fondness inside him.

‘You’re covered in snow.’ 

‘I’d noticed,’ Harry snorted. For a moment, he stood by the door, his grin lopsided; then, he seemed to catch himself and walked closer. ‘Are those the ingredients?’ 

‘Most of them, yes.’ 

Closing the distance, Harry tapped curious fingers over a narrow jar of Gillyweed. He let them fall to the desk with an amused huff. 

‘My desk?’ 

Draco smirked. How strange it was, meeting here in the morning: a seamless merging of night, when Harry was close and open and possible, and day, when the sunlight hid him out of view. It felt as private as dawn, as romantic as dusk. 

‘Seemed as good a place as any.’ 

Harry laughed. ‘Sod off. I’d actually like to focus, you know?’ 

‘And you can’t focus here, is it?’

‘Can you?’ Harry countered, an eyebrow raised - and Draco couldn’t, could think of little else than leaning over the desk between them and kissing him, pulling him close by the collar, making him arch and moan until the snow had melted off his shoulders. But that wasn’t new. It pulsed with renewed intensity, perhaps, but he’d long ago learnt to tame it. What _was_ new was this kind of proximity to Harry, friendly and lighthearted, without any urgency or alcohol or lily-white confidence from the moon. 

Besides, there was something delicious in seeing Harry squirm with the same lust that had cursed him for years. In a sense, it was only fair. 

He looked away from Harry’s heated gaze, fussing with the jars of crushed herbs. 

‘I’m good at waiting. Go fetch a cauldron, Potter.’

Harry grumbled something, hopelessly adorable in his frustration - hadn’t Draco called him adorable last night? had Harry liked it? would he blush all pink and pretty if Draco told him again? - before heading for the smaller cauldrons. Draco took a steadying breath: he would have liked to forego all pretense of subtlety and push Harry against a wall - he had teased, after all -, but the prick did need to learn the bloody potion and, judging by his reluctant pace, Draco would clearly have to be responsible for the both of them. 

He thought this, but he still followed Harry’s figure intently until he was standing close again.

‘Alright. What’s the base then?’ 

‘Standard potioning water; add some wormwood until it’s mint green.’ 

Harry huffed while he searched for the right vial.

‘Doesn’t it say the measurements?’ 

‘You wouldn’t follow the measurements even if it had them,’ Draco drawled, earning him a glare. Harry haphazardly scattered some wormwood on the water - really, there ought to be some conscious effort in being so inept at Potions after seven and a half years.

‘Well, how do I bloody know when it’s mint green?’ 

‘You look at it, Potter.’ 

Harry sighed. ‘You really are going to be an arse the entire time, aren’t you?’ 

‘For as long as you keep being stubborn, at least,’ Draco retorted. The potion had turned the proper shade of green now, thin silvery stems floating in the water. He eased the jar off Harry’s fingers, more an excuse to touch than anything else. ‘You’re doing Gillyweed next - one vial, not two, and disentangle them first. Slughorn’s instructions will say two, though.’ 

‘He’s giving us the wrong instructions?’ Harry asked, eyes burning - most likely wondering how unfair it’d be for his _friends_ , for Granger who’d worked so hard, all simple, charming fury, and Draco loved him for it.

‘He’s giving us _old_ instructions,’ he clarified. ‘They didn’t know the side effects of too much Gillyweed, then. If you’d studied, you’d know that.’ 

‘But how are we supposed to know we can cut back on it?’ Harry insisted. Between his fingers, the gillyweed writhed like knotted rat tails. ‘You’d bloody _need_ Gillyweed not to laugh yourself breathless, wouldn’t you?’

Draco hummed approvingly. ‘Maybe you did do _some_ studying.’ 

Harry’s snort was a tad sharp.

‘I’m not _entirely_ useless.’

Draco’s shoulders tensed. He didn’t want Harry guarded; didn’t want to echo his past self, all jokes bereft of warmth, jabbing in the childish compulsion to get Harry to _look._

‘I know that,’ he said, softer. Then, because he _had_ to balance it, because his words, when he wasn’t careful, all spoke too much of love, he added with a smile, ‘You just sound it sometimes.’ 

This time Harry laughed without sourness. ‘You arse. Just tell me what the fucking potion needs next. You’re a wretched teacher.’ 

Draco hid his relieved smile and - because he felt like he _could_ \- he pressed a hand to Harry’s hip as he stepped behind him to grab the jar of preserved flitterby moths. 

‘Powder these - all of them - and add them slowly. In the instructions it’ll say counterclock swirls, but you ought to use the three-ninety technique. Hadn’t been popularized yet.’ 

And really, subtlety had a time and a place - now, with Harry’s warmth bleeding in through his clothes, and his hair so soft and smelling of snow an inch from Draco’s nose, he couldn’t bring himself to letting go, and his hand lingered. Harry didn’t seem to mind; rather, he pressed back with an amused hum. 

‘I didn’t study it. I used Gillyweed in the Triwizard Tournament.’ 

I’d forgotten about that,’ Draco murmured. Over Harry’s shoulder, he could see the little swirling motions on the mortar; he repeated them with his thumb on Harry’s hip.

‘D’you know it in the first place?’ 

‘Of course I did,’ Draco scoffed. ‘Don’t know if you noticed, but I was a bit obsessed with you at the time.’ 

Harry laughed, scooping a few more of the fluorescent orange insects into the mortar.

‘Me too. Though I did hate you at the time. What’s your excuse?’ 

How he regretted that Veritaserum game - it would have been much safer to say he’d hated him as well and leave it at that. Then again, Harry surely ought to know by now that he had _some_ sort of feelings for him. It wasn’t like he’d been subtle. What could honesty cost him, then? 

‘I found you handsome,’ he admitted, kissing the skin just above Harry’s ear. Harry - to his relief or concern, he couldn’t quite decide - laughed again, softly shaking against his chest. 

‘Did you _really_?’

‘Yes. How is that funny?’ 

‘You _know_ why that’s funny,’ Harry gave up on powdering the flitterbies, turning to face Draco with an insufferably smug grin. ‘Were you another Potter fan?’ 

‘Not _another_. The greatest. I did get you to notice me, didn’t I?’ Draco mused - and he’d said it lightly, were Harry to see it as a joke, but he didn’t. His smile faltered, then grew wider, then clashed against Draco’s own lips in a sudden kiss. 

There was very little to complain about in that turn of events. Draco pressed him against the desk, slid his other hand down so he could grip both of Harry’s hips, keeping him primly tucked between the edge of the desk and his own body, and kissed him harshly, drunk on his own sincerity, the reckless feel of it, the fact that it hadn’t pushed Harry away - it’d brought him closer, and they were kissing in broad daylight, even if in the privacy of the vacant classroom, and this _had_ to be the beginning of something meaningful, something that _lasted_. 

But then Harry pulled away with a little breathless chuckle. 

‘I did say I wanted to focus.’ 

‘Forget that.’ 

‘ _You_ said you were good at waiting.’ 

‘Forget that as well,’ Draco murmured, dipping down to kiss his jaw.

‘Malfoy,’ Harry breathed, a little whine that ended in a moan. The sound made heat pool in Draco’s stomach. 

‘I told you I wouldn’t be a selfless teacher.’ 

‘You haven’t done much teaching yet,’ Harry snorted, and then he was pushing him away with a hand on his chest and turning back to the neglected potion, arse grazing teasingly against Draco’s growing erection. ‘Quit touching me or we’ll never be done with this.’ 

‘If you’d studied in the slightest, we wouldn’t have to do this at all.’ 

‘Well, if Slughorn wasn’t such a-’

‘Just add the bloody flutterbies, Potter.’ 

They made it through most of the potion swimmingly. It was a complicated little thing, overly perfumed and tinged pink with aconite - Baneberry leaves for no purpose but bitterness, for Merlin’s sake - but Harry seemed to get into the swing of it. Draco didn’t try to touch him again. Mostly, he kept his hands fisted by his sides. There was a brief argument over the legitimacy of the three-ninety technique: Harry, the bloody fool, was unmovable that there was no difference in stirring with ninety degree motions, like he’d never _had_ Potions before, but it was quickly sorted, and shortly they were putting the brew on a low simmer to help dissolve the powdered castor teeth. 

‘I’ve a question. Not about the potion.’ 

Draco, who’d been inspecting the little lumps that had formed on the surface - Harry had been too rash in untangling the Gillyweed - looked up at him. 

‘What is it?’ 

‘What did Ron want?’ 

The question was asked innocently enough. But Draco knew Harry knew, and he knew what Harry really meant was ‘what did you tell him?’. It caused a surge of cold in him: this uncertainty in their relationship, or strict lack of it, felt like the desperate moment before he woke up from pleasant dreams. 

‘He wanted to know why you didn’t tell him where you were. I’d rather like to know as well.’ 

Now it was Harry who looked down at the small cauldron. He was stirring the brew pointlessly, some nasty habit he’d picked up from Muggle cuisine. 

‘You think I’m ashamed of you.’ 

‘Only because you act like it.’ 

‘Well, I’m not.’ 

Draco lifted a cynical eyebrow. ‘Aren’t you?’ 

‘Have _you_ told anyone?’ Harry snapped back. The potion had gone neon pink - past its point. Draco didn’t feel much inclined to take it off the flame. 

‘Yes. Pansy. Should I not have?’ 

‘No. I mean, yes- I don’t care, is what I mean,’ Harry sighed. ‘Ginny and I - everyone knew. Everyone _asks_. I just figured: with you, if I kept quiet… no one would ask.’ 

‘How mature,’ Draco drawled.

 _‘Cautious,’_ Harry retorted. He deflated, regarding Draco softly. ‘Are you cross? Do you want me to tell them?’ 

Draco knew he ought to be understanding in his answer. It was an incurable symptom of fame to crave discretion - he couldn’t blame Harry, the Boy Who Lived, for suffering from it. Oh, and he actually feared he wouldn’t mind a life inside closets and under beds, nestled between shoe boxes, if only Harry took him out every so often and kissed him. But he wanted more, and he wanted to say so selfishly. He wanted all the pretentious pomp of official relationships; he wanted to kiss Harry in the Great Hall; he wanted their fingers entwined in the bloody Daily Prophet.

He met Harry’s gaze. ‘I’m not cross. And yes, I do.’

Harry seemed surprised only for a millisecond. Then, muscles clipped all over and he was mesmerizing fire and firm bravery.

‘Who, then?’

‘Everyone.’

Harry snorted. ‘That’s bloody demanding. You’ve only told Pansy.’ 

Draco rolled his eyes. ‘I’d tell the entire school if you let me, Potter.’

That pitiful yearning had seeped into his tone, soaked him sickly sweet, and Harry’s eyes went wide. Draco searched in them for a sign that he could close the distance and kiss him, dispel the tension that had been building with soft touches and worshipping lips, but a moment after Harry’s eyes had slipped from his and onto the potion again. 

‘Is it meant to look quite so pink?’

‘Nothing’s ever supposed to look that pink. Take it off the heat.’ 

The potion swished in the cauldron as Harry moved it away from the flame and back to the desk. A whiplash of sugar as he fluttered past - then, cold empty air. The moment dissolved. A second after, Draco followed. 

‘We fucked it up.’ 

‘ _You_ fucked it up.’ 

‘You’re the teacher,’ Harry reminded, running a spoon through the viscous pink fluid. ‘Is it too bad, do you think?’ 

Draco got nearer, peering at it over Harry’s shoulder.

‘It certainly looks bad.’

‘Well, it ought to just be weaker now it’s burnt. Shall we taste it and see?’ Harry craned his neck to look up at him. The beginnings of a joke, devious and dangerous, were twinkling in his eyes. 

‘Why on earth would we drink spoiled Alihotsy?’ Draco sighed. He really did wish Harry would stop _proposing_ things: it led to all kinds of unpredictabilities. 

‘Oh, come on,’ Harry smirked. He was already searching for a pair of combustion spoons. ‘We’ll do it like a shot. About the same thing in the end, ain’t it?’ 

‘Shots don’t make you laugh ‘til you faint,’ Draco huffed. Regardless, when Harry offered him a spoon he took it promptly, scooping up some of the nasty brew. 

‘Speak for yourself,’ Harry snorted, ‘Well, bottoms up, mate.’ 

They each brought the small spoons to their mouths. The hot pink stuff amounted to around a gulp’s worth, precisely like a shot, slipping quick and painful down their throats. Bitter from the Baneberry. Ginger undertones. Giggly somehow - in taste, in texture, in essence, he didn’t know. Like a fragrance from within, spring perfumed, wisping up from the base of his tongue to the inside of his nose, bubbling there in the sudden wish to laugh. 

Because it was funny, wasn’t it? His entire life - the entire ordeal. Being so close to Harry after so long, being allowed to kiss yet not knowing what exactly his role was; this romance, so vague in outlines, so intense in depth - ridiculous, preposterous, fucking _hilarious_. How did he keep from laughing whenever he saw Harry, when he was shaken mute and breathless with the urge to touch? Crippling love. A joke. 

He hopped onto the desk. A little burst of laughter escaped him when he remarked:

‘It’s effective.’ 

Harry giggled. His irises seemed to be spinning in his eyes.

‘It’s basically alcohol.’ 

He pushed the cauldron aside and sat next to Draco. Their thighs were pressed together. That too, in its temptation - in how much Draco _wanted_ \- seemed absurd. Draco’s laugh rose higher. A little after, Harry’s followed suit. 

‘What are you laughing about?’ 

‘Our legs,’ Draco answered. ‘You?’

‘The same thing. Why’d you reckon it’s funny?’

‘I’ve no bloody clue,’ Draco snorted. Harry met him with a smile, so lovely and wide, and in tandem they were leaning closer for a kiss. 

It hardly worked, what with them both in a fit, but the feeling was still pressing and they tried their best, all clashing teeth and eager lips, humoured sounds spilling into the other’s mouth. Harry pulled him down by the collar; Draco settled into the new position with a pleased groan, hovering over Harry, littering kisses on his face. 

‘I love this desk,' Harry giggled as Draco kissed his nose. 

‘You’re fucking-’ Draco breathed with another kiss, this time under his eye, ‘-fucking adorable, Potter.’ 

‘So you’ve said,’ Harry wheezed. Growing frustrated from the soft touches, he sought Draco’s mouth. Draco denied him, ducking down instead to kiss the underside of his chin, where the skin was soft and neglected and purely his to mark. 

‘Well, it’s bloody true… quit squirming, will you? Quit _laughing_ ,’ he urged, but he was laughing himself, reeling with the insanity of the situation. He ought to be in some kind of dream, really, unfolding like a comedy in his mind. It was dreadfully inconvenient for his arousal, and he tried to muffle himself against the warm skin of Harry’s neck. 

‘D’you think… d’you think we’d make a profit selling this?’ Harry mused. He was cut off by a moan when Draco nipped more harshly at his skin. ‘Fuck, Malfoy, I want to suck you off.’ 

‘Bloody hell,’ Draco groaned. ‘You really did like it, didn’t you?’ 

_‘Yes,’_ Harry breathed out, slipping one hand between them to try and unbutton Draco’s slacks. ‘Malfoy, please.’ 

Draco was already moving his own hand down to help.

‘You hardly have to beg,’ he drawled, but the little hushed word, uttered so desperate from Harry’s mouth, stirred an obscene darkness in him. They switched positions - Harry straddled him, his eyes frighteningly intense in a mix of lust and hysteria, and pushed Draco’s slacks and underwear down, wrapping a hand around his cock. Before he could press his lips to it, Draco stopped him with fingers curled around his hair. 

‘I changed my mind.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Beg.’ 

Harry let out a little sound between a laugh and a whimper.

‘Malfoy-’ 

‘Come on, Potter,’ Draco rasped out. ‘Say please for me.’ 

For one moment made impossibly slow by the heights of euphoria. Harry just looked at him with ragged breaths, his cheeks as pink as the potion, writhing against Draco’s tight grip on his hair. Then, he seemed to deflate, boneless, soft and vulnerable and mesmerizingly wanton. 

_‘Please.’_

‘Fuck,’ Draco groaned. When one laughs so much their eyes tear, their stomachs shrink and they can’t breathe - that’s how it felt now. Laughter and lust: it was all the same. It all consumed, it all pooled impossibly urgent within him, it all _hurt_ in a promise of ecstasy. ‘That’s it, Potter. Fuck, you’re so good. I love- seeing you like this. _Fuck_.’ 

He finally eased his grip and Harry moved forward to take him in his mouth - but although the sensation was hot and tight and heavenly, it was short-lived. A moment later Harry had to pull out to breathe out a laugh. 

‘I don’t-’ he giggled. ‘-actually know how I’m going to do this.’ 

Draco sighed. ‘All potions have downsides,’ he uttered before coaxing Harry up again - by the hair, always by the hair, because there was nothing he loved more than to graze fingers across Harry’s scalp and hear him moan as he felt the slight sting; moving him around like that, seeing that oxymoron of pliant and rebellious, feeling Harry’s _trust_. ‘You really did want to, didn’t you?’ he murmured against Harry’s ear. 

‘Maybe another time,’ Harry hummed. ‘There’s other ways to get off.’ 

Draco laughed. ‘Yes, there is. What’d you want, Potter?’ 

‘Well, nothing _complicated_.’

‘Complicated being me fucking you?’ Draco murmured, delighting in the shiver he elicited. 

‘That’s-’ Harry breathed against Draco’s neck ‘-for another time as well.’ 

‘Will you say please then, too?’ he teased, tone pitched low with hunger. The vision formed before him so perfectly: Harry panting with his legs spread, burning and wet - so wet, because Draco would open him up slowly, carefully, memorizing every filthy sound from the lube on his fingers and Harry’s hole. Harry begging so sweetly, trusting him so completely, a lion choosing not to bite but to be bitten, to relish in the bruises, to wait until the pain spiralled into pleasure. And Harry convulsing around him; moaning in the crook of his neck, thighs shivering, hot and tight and all for him. Draco would make it so good, an unforgettable first time, the fucking best Harry would ever have. Years to come and they might be apart, but Harry would fuck and remember how he himself had taken it so sweetly; be fucked and remember Draco’s hips pistoning into him.

He suspected the moment might mean more to him than Harry, even though it would be Harry’s first time. Harry moaned regardless, eyelids fluttering like he could envision even a fraction of Draco’s fantasy. 

‘I’ll say please now if it means you’ll get a hand around my cock.’ 

‘Say it, then.’ 

‘Malfoy, for _fuck's_ sake,’ Harry whined, but he still laughed, breathless and hysterical, trembling in his fingers as he tried to take himself out of his slacks. 

‘You’re the one who offered.’ 

Harry hissed when he finally got a hand around himself. Draco’s own erection was sliding in dizzying friction against Harry’s shirt.

‘Get me something to say please for, then.’ 

It was more than enough motivation: Draco swatted Harry’s hand away and replaced it with his own, jerking Harry tight and fast, rising from him a ragged sound. Harry, in turn, started stroking Draco in tandem, catching his lips for another laughing kiss. 

‘Is that enough-’ Draco fought off a chuckle as his arousal spiked ridiculously quick. ‘-enough of a reason for you?’ 

‘Almost,’ Harry moaned. His thumb moved teasingly over Draco’s slit, smearing the weeping precum there; Draco flicked his wrist, moved his fingers up to caress his balls, feeling how full they were, how they curled high and taut, wondering how it’d be if he could trail them towards his arsehole and see the virgin muscle flutter. Harry’s clothes were in the way, however. Besides, he’d denied ‘complicated’. Draco loved to push, not to overstep. 

As their orgasms approached, so too did their laughter worsen, replacing the usual moans and grunts. Lustful bled into hysterical, urgency spilled from their tongues until they were hoarse and writhing against each other, their stomachs twisted tight, their breaths insufficient wisps through reddened noses. Pain worse than pleasure - then the inverse, ever shifting, maddening. 

‘Potter,’ he warned once Harry had gone especially erratic. He was dangerously close to the edge himself, bucking into Harry’s fist. ‘You offered.’ 

Harry’s laughter was an exhausted, desperate little thing. ‘You’ll get- get smug if you hear it too much.’ 

‘I’m already smug. Just look at yourself,’ Draco wheezed. ‘And you want to, so say it.’ 

‘Malfoy.’ 

‘You’re very close, aren’t you?’

‘Malfoy-’

_‘Potter.’_

_‘Please,’_ Harry murmured, soft and broken between bouts of laughter, eyes clinging onto some shred of seriousness in a millisecond of sanity. But then Draco rewarded him with a quickening of his pace, filthy and frenzied and loud, and Harry was thrown into mindless euphoria as he came, spilling with needy little twitches in Draco’s hand. His fingers convulsed desperately around Draco’s cock, and that sent him over as well. It felt so _good_ , both Harry’s climax in his hand and his own - bloody sinful, fucking unbelievable, and Draco didn’t think he’d ever laughed as much in his life. 

When they came down from the edge, bodies spent and fingers sticky, Draco’s stomach was an insufferably painful knot high up in his throat. 

‘We ought to have added more Gillyweed,’ Harry giggled - it sounded like it cost him, a pained, helpless noise, and he tucked his head into the crook of Draco’s neck. 

It felt so peaceful - that was the problem. Decadent, to have Harry so close and soft. And the potion still ached inside him, and humour brought forth the curse of recklessness, of impulsive honesty - because it felt funny now, all that had ever tormented him, and jokes were meant to be _shared_ \- so the words spilled unbidden from his lips:

‘How I love you, Potter.’ 

And Harry laughed - what else could he do? - with his lips against Draco’s skin. 

‘Alihotsy sure makes you friendly, Malfoy. You ought to drink it more often.’ 

Draco laughed as well, exclusively because of the neon liquid. He felt sour inside. Shaken by danger that had never been. He ran a gentle hand up and down Harry’s back and tried to keep his voice some semblance of steady when he spoke. 

‘I doubt that’d be wise. What ridiculous things I’d say.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I have to tell you is that cooking would be much more fun if the ingredients had some of the names from the HP universe. Like, gillyweed? Yes, please.
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	15. Celebrating with Sherbet Lemons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was proofreading this chapter, and I gotta say he's my son and I love him to death <3
> 
> Also, gratuitous headcanons about the iconic every flavour beans follow ahead, because it's my life's goal to turn everything into a drinking game (including life itself).

Come Friday, the eighth years were a fit of nerves over Slughorn’s test. It was the Slytherin’s custom to play a modicum of stressed for appearance’s sake - in general, all students sat studying in the cold dungeon halls, a frantic, solidary mess of Gryffindors, Slytherins, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws between manuals, notebooks and loose, scribbled pages, until the hour finally came and Slughorn ushered them in. 

It took an hour. Draco dutifully focused on his own brew; though he dallied, he still left ten minutes early. Harry had looked at him when he headed out - didn’t smile, barely lingered past a nanosecond, but it’d been there nonetheless. His potion simmered over low heat, the right shade of pink. Closing the door behind him, Draco allowed himself to smile. 

Next came Alchemy. They made a strange few, the ones who’d chosen that elective, and the air of the musty laboratory thrummed with burst nerves and lingering tension; the test had gone wrong for a pair of Hufflepuffs, as it seemed; swimmingly for the charmless Rowena, and that’s all he’d gathered. Although he had half a mind to ask Harry, the thought fell mute at his hips, dead at his knees, and he couldn’t for the life of him lift a foot and walk up to the little table where Harry sat transmuting tin. 

Granger seemed angry, he noticed. Not the most telltale of signs - she seldom didn’t. 

His curiosity as to how the test had gone grew; in unison, his bravery shrunk into something meek and lacking in spine. If Harry had told his friends - and Draco had asked him to, he remembered that, but had Harry actually agreed? -, then it’d be different. For that, Draco would swat all pesky unsureties and charge up to him and _ask_ , if only to prove to his friends that he could be a good boyfriend - partner, friend, whatever he was. As it was, no solemn change had been felt in his world, the colours hadn’t seemed brighter nor had the air felt warmer, and he’d been waking just like he’d always woken - slightly disillusioned -, so it felt unlikely that Harry _had_ said anything to make their relationship official. Nothing felt different. 

He wondered how exactly did relationships begin. Did they stem from some clean confession, like Draco’s when they’d been under the effect of Alihotsy, which had been so bittersweetly discarded? Did they turn so quickly into open kisses and implicit commitment? Were they meant to be this foggy?

In the end, the opportunity to find out about the test came to him under the form of one blind mess of limbs. 

‘Oy- mind you, mate,’ Dean Thomas exclaimed as they clashed against each other on a tight corner. ‘You’re alright, sorry about that.’ 

‘Have you and Finnigan never learnt to walk?’ said Draco, steadying himself against the wall. The thought came to him when he caught the lingering scent of Gillyweed in Thomas’s robes. ‘How did Slughorn’s test go?’ 

Dean Thomas went impossibly joyful in his eerily wide smile. 

‘How’d it go for you? I reckon it was stellar, all you Slytherins are cracks at potions,’ Dean laughed. ‘Well, you won’t believe what happened to us. It was the strangest thing - Harry, you know, we were doing some cramming last night, and he comes in with this old book he got in the- well, nevermind where he got it, but he had it, yeah? And we were skimming through it, and it was all these outdated versions of potions - Amortentia, Mopsus, _Alihotsy_ , can you believe it? Though we didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, a potion that makes you laugh, why’d Slughorn ever choose that?’ Dean took a moment to breathe, ‘Anyway, Harry’s complaining that all of them are like from centuries ago, right? And Hermione, she goes on this bid about how it’s all relevant, you just have to update the practices. Of course, we all thought it a bit of a bore, then - but then the test comes, and, well, you know what it was. Alihotsy, ancient as all hell. I reckon we all remembered enough of what Hermione had said to pass. How bloody great is that?’ 

He was panting by the end of it. Draco could see the marvel in his eyes - did he honestly think it’d been pure luck? That Potter - devious, dishonest, insufferable, _brilliant_ Potter - hadn’t architected this passable excuse of a coincidence? A _book_ \- where had Potter unearthed it from? -, an innocent question, Granger’s reliable passion for monologues, and all his friends knew just enough to make it through. Passive help. Ridiculously obvious; ridiculously devoid of proof. Just enough to look into Draco’s eyes and very proudly say he hadn’t told a soul. 

Draco loved him. 

Dean Thomas’s brain eventually catched up with his tongue. ‘Not that- you know. It was- odd, but he didn’t know. He’d have told us if he knew. Don’t tell Slughorn, is what I mean. He’ll get all suspicious for no reason.’ 

‘I won’t. I won’t tell anyone, as a matter of fact. Seems a bit too good to be true, doesn’t it?’ 

‘That it does,’ Dean smiled. ‘We’re going out to celebrate tonight. You should come. I mean, if it went well. If it didn’t, though, it’d help take your mind off it.’

Draco drew a polite smile. ‘I’ll be there.’ 

‘Good, mate,’ Dean patted his shoulder. ‘We ought to be easy to find. Just search the bars.’ 

Back in the Astronomy tower, tucked into his favoured alcove, Draco mulled over the short exchange. He was glad he’d go to Hogsmeade with the group again. Then again, there’d been something in Dean’s demeanour - or, better said, a strict lack of _anything_ , an utterly unremarkable casualness - that meant Dean thought of him just the same as always. Nothing had changed. Harry hadn’t told him. Draco reckoned he hadn’t told anyone. 

Unsurprising, really. Draco hadn’t much expected it. He’d demanded with the authority of a meek child. 

He’d hoped. 

The sun set. Pansy caught him heading to change clothes, and promptly changed as well. 

‘I gather you won’t tell me whom you’re dressed up for.’ 

‘I dress up for everyone, dear,' Pansy replied. ‘Don’t wear that shirt. Colours make you bland.’

The clock dotted ten. They headed to Hogsmeade, calm and spare-worded under the narrow crescent moon. Draco was clad in black and grey once more; Pansy in smooth, deep navy. They searched the streets for a trace of them. Kettle Bottom, as well as the Three Broomsticks, were clear. When they were headed to check Hog’s Head, Finnigan’s sudden chirping made them halt. 

‘We swear we won’t steal anything!’ 

The peculiar shout came from a winding street to their left. Finnigan and Luna stood by the door of Honeydukes; a short man was scurrying down the the cobblestone. 

‘Malfoy! Parkinson! Good evening to ya,’ Finnigan greeted. His chin was so low in his smile that it practically dangled from his face. Not drunk, however. Like a violin string, ever tightly wound, now shaken by a careless finger. Sugar high. 

‘Candy, Finnigan?’ Pansy droned.

His expression brimmed with pride.

‘We are celebrating after all. How’d you do in Potions? Didn’t break a sweat, I assume?’ 

‘About so,’ Draco conceded. They’d finally reached them by the door - inside, over the sound of gentle music, he could hear the intermittent voices of the rest of the group. He searched for a glimpse of Harry, but only got one of Sue. ‘Dean invited me out.’ 

‘Did he now?’ Seamus shrugged. ‘He didn’t say. Well, we’re just raiding the store, have at it.’ 

‘Not _raiding_ ,’ Luna amended. ‘Mr. Chapman kindly let us stay while he fetched a drink.’ 

‘We ought to make good use of this time then, shouldn’t we?’ said Draco, absent, impatient to get inside. The four of them walked up the uneven stone step and into the colourful store, all dim corridors and eccentric trinkets, the chandelier spinning reds and greens on the walls. Pansy drifted into an easy discussion with Luna over the colour of her dress, Finnigan was eager to trail far from Draco and down a wretched avenue of Pixie Puffs and Every Flavour Beans; Draco, on his own accord, greeted Hermione and Fletchley, who were by the door, and had half a mind to check the treacle tart corridor when he caught sight of Harry right by the counter, leaning against it, already looking at Draco with a softly pleased expression. 

He walked up to him, suppressing his own smile. The air there had the lightly fizzy scent of sherbet lemons. 

‘I’m glad you came,’ Harry said, incredibly genuine, the type of sweetness Draco wanted spilled directly into his lips. 

‘You ought to have invited me, then.’ 

Harry chuckled, turning away to look at the rest of the store, at his friends that walked around with full bags and eager tweezers. Draco, on the other hand, was transfixed by the pale curve of his profile. 

‘Dean told me he had.’ 

‘Regardless, I rathered _you_ had done it.’ 

‘Same result.’ 

‘But infinitely more pleasant means,’ Draco smirked. Harry met his gaze with an amused fondness reminiscent of that tepid morning with the Alihotsy - and Draco had told him he _loved_ him then, and he was so close to confessing it again, whispering it warm and desperate in his ear, so in its place he said, ‘Then again, perhaps it was best Dean was the one to invite me. Because he told me all about your little _book_.’

Harry’s eyes twinkled with something primly hid.

‘Lucky, wasn’t it?’ 

‘Unbelievably so. Sounds like you have an angel on your shoulder, Potter.’

Harry looked back at the store, but Draco could see the smile teasing his lips. 

‘Say, I could do with some fresh air.’ 

And it’d have felt like he wasn’t talking to Draco at all if it weren’t for the most fleeting of touches to his arm, a gentle squeeze to his elbow before he was grabbing his bag of candy from the counter and heading for the door. 

Draco was on his heels before he could properly process the words. 

Outside, the wind was crisp on his skin. Harry’s bag of sherbet lemons carried the zingy perfume into the street. His smile was wide and crooked with indiscreet complicity. 

‘So where’d you get the book from?’ asked Draco.

‘The Restricted Section.’ 

_‘Potter.’_

Harry laughed. ‘Are you cross, Malfoy? I didn’t really say a word.’ 

‘Not any word that _mattered_ , anyway,’ Draco scoffed. ‘Just a lot of bullshit ones.’

Harry simply laughed again, unbothered, eyes bright - when he stopped, his lips pressed into the softest of smiles, a type of fondness that caught Draco’s breath. 

‘Thank you,’ he murmured, and then he was coaxing him down with a hand on the back of his neck and kissing him. 

It was a solid thing that didn’t intend to move: a silent statement shared between lips. It lingered. Draco pursued it, seeking, reeling, for it’d been the first time he’d tasted Harry with the wind on him, gelid and sure and open. The first time they kissed like others kissed. There came the memory of that faceless couple holding hands in that first night in Hogsmeade, when he’d been bitter and hopeless - now, here he was, here _they_ were, and Harry’s mouth held the gentle fragrance of lemons, and his fingers were firm on his neck, and Harry Potter was kissing him in a bloody common street in a bloody common night, and Draco loved him so much he was dizzy with it. 

Dizzy to the point of lunacy, really, because then they parted, and Draco had told Harry in explicit words with Alihotsy, he’d spoken of love by its name then, but now he was breathing out a word which felt incredibly more revealing:

‘Harry.’ 

And to this confession Harry’s eyes widened in surprise, then melted into warmth. He opened his mouth to answer, but it was another voice that came out:

‘How long has this been going on for, then?’ 

Hermione was leaning against the doorframe. She looked angry again. Perhaps she wasn’t, and Draco was simply poor at reading her. 

A moment later, more faces - Neville, Ron, Finnigan, Pansy - were peering curiously through the door. And Harry simply looked _amused,_ not frightened, not regretful, and now at last the colours brightened into carnival hysteria, the icy air felt sweet in his lungs, and the world was better, the world had _changed_ , because this was bloody _official_. 

‘Not long,’ Harry replied, casual, light, his hand lingering on Draco's neck.

Finnigan scoffed. ‘You told me I was _mad_ when I asked if you fancied him!’ 

‘You’re mad regardless,’ Draco managed to say. He wasn't quite paying attention, however - all his focus was on Harry.

‘D’you have no sense of subtlety?’ Ron grumbled. ‘First the Shrieking Shack, now this.’ 

Hermione pinned him with a glare. ‘You knew?’ she asked, which was a bit rich, wasn't it?, considering she'd been acting as Draco's impromptu confidant for a few weeks. 

‘I knew they’d fucked.’ 

‘We didn’t,’ Harry intervened. No, what they'd done at the Shrieking Shack couldn't be considered fucking. Draco reckoned it'd be more accurate to call it a cosmic test of his self-control.

‘Well, then I didn’t know anything,' Ron shrugged. 

‘Wait,’ piped up Sue. ‘You didn’t fuck, or you _haven't_ fucked?’ 

Harry looked up at him with questioning eyes.

‘ _Have_ we fucked?’ 

And that question, which was pitched so innocently and yet, through the dark twinkle in Harry’s gaze, that felt so _filthy_ , had the oddest effect of at once tethering Draco to reality and utterly throwing him from it: because what was indeed happening was that, after years of pining and aching and repressing until his heart had gone rigid, Draco was in some sort of relationship with Harry fucking Potter, and able to talk about it with others, with his friends moreover; able to speak quiet and tender into Harry’s ear and have him tucked in the crook of his arm like he _belonged_ there - and he did, he fit perfectly, _he_ was perfect; able to talk in a way that everyone - especially Ginny, who surely lurked somewhere inside the store - knew Harry was _his_ , entirely and hopefully - Merlin, Draco hoped - for a very, very long time. So long that a mortal would call it forever. He could do that now: _that_ was real, and yet so ethereal that it could only belong to a dream.

So Draco dared to lace Harry’s waist with his arm, pressing their sides together, proving at once, in this blissful warm touch that he could never mimic in his most lucid of fantasies, that he was in a dream while very much awake.

He wandered back to the conversation, finding Harry’s gaze still on him expectantly.

‘I suppose that would depend on your definition of fucking,’ he told him, voice hopelessly tender - and he knew the others could hear him, he knew that Pansy would _relish_ in it for months, but he couldn’t find it in him to care when he saw Harry’s smile widen.

‘I guess we haven’t really, then,’ Harry told the group. 

Draco smirked, trailing his hand down to Harry’s hip.

‘Not yet, no.’ 

Harry huffed a surprised laugh. They both primly ignored the pair of groans coming from the door. 

‘As long as you don’t do it in front of us,’ said Ron, and the impatient tone he’d used - for he looked in all aspects like he wanted to turn around and bolt - brought an air of finality to the whole thing. A moment of curiosity, shameless prodding and ogling eyes. Over now. The faces by the door dispersed, their voices gave way to gentle music once more, and Draco and Harry were not quite alone but mostly forgotten. 

‘I’d been thinking about how to tell them, you know,’ Harry said suddenly. ‘I just figured - I’ve never been good with words anyway.’ 

Draco’s eyes widened as he took in Harry’s mischievous smile. He broke into laughter.

‘You absolute git.’ 

‘Well, it did the trick, didn’t it?’

‘Yes, it did,’ Draco conceded, his tone softer. He looped Harry’s waist completely, linking his fingers on his lower back, and spoke a shivering inch from his lips. ‘We should do it again. In school. Let everyone know.’ 

Harry snorted. ‘In front of McGonagall - could you _imagine_?’ 

‘I think I’d quite like her to know as well, actually,’ Draco smirked, gently kissing the corner of Harry’s mouth. 

‘You just want to show off, don’t you?’ Harry mused. He let out the softest breath as Draco began nipping at his lip.

‘Precisely,’ Draco purred. ‘Have you any idea-’ he dipped lower, sucking at the lovely skin below his jaw, drunk on the thought that he got to explore, that he got to _mark_ ‘-how long I’ve wanted to be able to say I _have_ you?’ 

‘Harry! You bloody twat, come pay for yours, I told Chapman we wouldn’t steal!’ 

It was Finnigan’s voice, of course. By this point, Draco could hardly hear that loud, chirping tone without immediately feeling like something was about to be taken from his arms.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Harry sighed, patting Draco’s shoulders before stepping away. Draco very pointedly noticed the deliberate way in which he draped his robe over his crotch, and he smirked darkly at the sight. ‘Alright, come on, then,’ Harry said, dragging him by the arm and into the shop. ‘And stop looking so damn pleased, Draco.’ 

The name - the first time he’d heard it from Harry, he believed - was enough to vanish his smile. In its place, open and reverent and so vulnerable that it trembled in the wind, remained only the purest form of love. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


He’d lurked in those streets once. 

He’d dug feet into cobblestone and spied on Harry’s little group from the narrow windows of those pubs. He’d watched Harry’s smile, the dip of his throat as he drank, the way he slipped friendly arms over his friends and swayed his hips on the dancefloor. He’d looked as wistfully as one reads a magnificent book, certain that he’d never become its character. 

Now, he sat in that booth. 

At Hog’s Head, in the dim lighting, with his own arm slung over Harry’s shoulders. Harry’s head ever inching towards his shoulder, as if meaning to settle into its warmth, only to lunge forward with excitement at someone else’s words time and time again. Restless energy, a universe of chaos under black hair, beautiful, _marvelous_ Harry was at his side, and Draco could do little else than glimpse out those windows and picture his past self in the street, desperately in love and bitterly jealous, and feel that the universe, despite its infuriating workings, had truly been impossibly kind. 

‘Alright, mates, we got enough beans for quite a few rounds, so everyone put some sickles up for shots,’ said Alicia, spreading a selection of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans on the table. An order of firewhiskey had already been placed, but everyone began searching their pockets all the same. 

‘A game, is it?’ he asked.

‘An excellent game,’ Harry smiled. ‘All about the flavours: you get a bad one, you wash it down; you get a good one, you’re asked a truth.’ 

‘No possible way to win, then?’

‘No possible way it gets _boring_ ,’ Harry smirked. 

Neville volunteered to begin the game: he carefully chose an orange bean with yellow flecks. It turned out a harmless citrus flavour. 

Dean Thomas harrumphed, ‘Neville, who’d you most like to shag on this table?’

The poor boy went red as a beet. Draco hid his smile by taking a sip of his firewhiskey. 

‘Your friends really don’t play nice, do they?’ he murmured to Harry. 

‘We don’t expect you to either,’ Harry replied, his eyes landing on Draco for a second with a hint of challenge - like he _wanted_ Draco’s worst, which was really quite too tempting, since Draco was certain Harry was filled with little secrets he’d blush so prettily for if he was made to spill them aloud. 

Harry had teased, after all. He ought to know Draco would have no problems embarrassing him a bit, if only to feel him writhe so endearingly against his side. 

‘Seamus,’ was Neville’s answer. 

‘He’s lying,’ sighed Finnigan, taking a dispirited gulp of his drink. ‘Whenever someone lies they choose me.’ 

They began picking their flavours to the right of Neville. Ginny - and Draco would admit he thoroughly enjoyed the fact - got the taste of a dirty sock, and washed it down quite eagerly with one of the many neon bright shots that had arrived. Fletchley, cursed to be invariably boring, got strawberry. Dean Thomas impulsively asked him the same question: after a tense pause, Finnigan, again, was the response. Someone asked Luna which House she would rather be in if it weren’t for Ravenclaw, to which Luna unexpectedly - and after only one millisecond of thought - chose Slytherin. Hermione risked a greyish one that turned out to be mold; Ron went for a fluorescent green which, according to him, tasted either of sewers or corianders. Draco got the bottom of an ashtray, and squeezed Harry’s shoulder as he downed a shot.

Harry got the most innocent of flavours: chocolate, which he revealed to the group with partial bitterness, already glancing at Draco with expectant eyes. 

He was going to ask Harry whether he rathered getting blowjobs or giving them. He was going to ask it, because he _knew_ Harry’s response wouldn’t be immediate - and in that lingering silence his cheeks would heat up so lovely and pink, and everyone would know just how much Harry liked sucking cock, how he craved to have his lips slick and spread, his throat convulsing so obediently around _Draco_ , only Draco, no one else… He was going to ask it, and have his arm around him the whole time to feel him tense and shiver and hopefully begin to harden at the thought, desperate under the table for Draco to see. He was going to make him regret ever challenging him, and then make it up to him in the bathroom a few rounds later. 

He was going to, but Pansy spoke first, her gaze the most dangerous shade of amused from where she was sitting between Luna and Hermione. 

‘Harry, I wonder - I was asking this to Draco just the other day, actually - who’s planning to fuck whom in this darling relationship of yours?’ 

Around the table, there was a shared intake of breath. Dean Thomas choked on his laughter; Ginny seemed distinctly uncomfortable; the others were a mix of surprised and curious. Harry, so preciously stubborn, did his best to look unaffected. Draco, however, could feel him tense against his side. Oh, and Draco loved the question, suspected Pansy had meant it as some sort of perverted gift, to feel Harry shift against him and know unequivocally that he was trying out scenarios of himself being fucked by Draco, or rather being the one fucking, and seeing which one he liked best… Merlin, and he _ached_ to know Harry’s answer, and to hear his thought process recounted in exhaustive, _graphic_ detail, but the truth was it wasn’t nearly as fun to see Harry squirm when he hadn’t been the cause. It was infinitely less amusing than seeing Neville flustered - it left him concerned and inconveniently angry. He’d be having words with Pansy when they returned to Hogwarts, though he wasn’t quite sure which words those would be yet. 

‘We haven’t discussed it,’ Harry said at last, then took a big sip of firewhiskey. Draco realized they truly hadn’t, and thought it a grave, terrible, incomprehensible mistake. 

‘By all means, then: discuss,’ Pansy smirked. 

‘You don’t really have to, though,’ said Sue, her voice ragged from the shot she’d downed. ‘The game is just what you think, not what you both agree.’ 

‘Oh Merlin, Sue, how helpful,’ Harry glared, before sighing. He very pointedly did not look at Draco when he continued, ‘We’re talking the first time, right? I figure Draco would be the one fucking me, then.’ 

And there was laughter around the table, Draco couldn’t quite get if it was agreeing or doubtful, and Ron made some sort of quip that had Harry shaking with an unwitting laugh, and the game moved on for Alicia to pick her flavour. 

Draco didn’t much care, and saw only that she’d taken a frankly sketchy dark purple bean from the pile before he was leaning down to purr into Harry’s ear:

‘Do you really?’ 

Harry suppressed a little smile, his cheeks so deliciously red, his gaze still on the table. 

‘Well, the game’s all about telling the truth.’ 

Draco snorted, then hiked the hand he had on Harry’s shoulder a bit higher, so he could dip his fingers just slightly under his shirt, teasing the skin there. 

‘Have I told you that you look irresistible when you blush?’

Harry had his fingers very tightly curled around the edges of his seat. 

‘I think you’d remember if you had.’ 

Draco hummed, a very sudden - very inappropriate, for how crowded the pub was - spike of arousal stirring in his stomach, pooling amidst alcohol. ‘Well, you do. Bloody sinful. Though I’m sure you’ll be much worse when I _do_ fuck you. I’m sure every inch of you will be pink then, won’t it?’ 

He kissed Harry’s temple, not really to tease but because he felt like he’d go absolutely mental if he didn’t. Harry fluttered under the soft touch, sending him something that was much too heated to be a proper glare. With a smug smirk, Draco noticed that Harry’s knuckles had gone white on the booth seat. 

He withdrew, lifting his gaze to follow the game, and set to will away his own growing erection. 

The following round, it was Draco who got a harmless flavour. Lemon - awfully similar to the flavour of Harry’s lips. 

‘If you and Harry really are an item,’ Neville began, ‘Was it really a coincidence that Harry found that book yesterday?’

Draco huffed a laugh, toying with his glass of firewhiskey.

‘Oh, Harry finding that bloody book, that was definitely a coincidence. A daft, wretched, _reckless_ coincidence.’ 

Harry simply shrugged, looking entirely unbothered.

‘The Forbidden Section really isn’t that dangerous to sneak into.’ 

‘Cheers to that,’ Ron raised his glass, ‘We’ve been robbing that place every year since we got here. It’s more the Interesting Section than anything else, by this point.’

Next was Harry, who got burnt toast. According to him, it wasn’t so bad. 

‘If you liked it, then that’s a shot _and_ a truth,’ reasoned Finnigan. 

‘Oh, sod off,’ snorted Harry. He downed his shot all the same, throat bobbing so beautifully as he swallowed the nasty green fluid, peeking his tongue out to lick his liquor-slick lips in a way that was undeniably _obscene_. Or maybe Draco was just biased - he didn’t think so, however. If there was such a thing as objective beauty, then Harry incarnated it.

‘How many times have you lied to us about where you were going, because you were actually fooling around with Malfoy?’ asked Alicia. 

‘Merlin, do you have no trust in me?’ Harry sighed. ‘I’ve never _lied_. At most I’ve omitted.’ 

‘That’s not much better.’ 

‘Certainly different, though,’ Harry retorted.

‘In any case, I doubt you’d want to know about every time we shag,’ Draco mused, making Harry laugh against his side. He wasn’t actually against it, as a matter of fact: as long as every lewd description made it very clear that Draco couldn’t be taken out of the picture, that Harry, quivering and moaning, only happened because of _Draco,_ then he didn’t see any objections. In truth, he found a dark sense of pride in having other people know he could turn fierce, glorious, perfect Harry Potter into putty under his touch.

Not that he’d share that with Harry. At least not yet - by the way his breath stuttered when Draco dug fingers into his flesh, or twisted his hair just right, Draco reckoned he might respond well to possessiveness. He really hoped Harry did, for there was a part of him, rotten and weakened by years of longing and jealousy, that craved to bite and mark and _keep._

‘We really, _really_ don’t want to hear about it. About _any_ of it, in fact,’ Ron grumbled. ‘Alicia, for Merlin’s sake, choose a flavour.’ 

There were a couple of unmemorable rounds. Dean and Ginny went out to get more shots after an entire turn of only nasty flavours; Pansy seemed to love the game, and asked by far the most embarrassing questions; Harry finished his firewhiskey, then sipped some of Draco’s, and as his cheeks flushed and his eyes brightened he slouched a little in his seat, settling his neck against Draco’s arm; Draco, on his part, ran absent trails with his fingers over Harry’s shoulder. His shirt, though a gorgeous grey, was too thin, and his skin was cold under the soft fabric. Draco had tried to insist that he keep his robes on when they’d reached the table, but Harry had rolled his eyes like a petulant child and shedded them over the back of the seat with a dismissive ‘fuck off’. He honestly didn’t know why he’d tried: Harry was very obviously incapable of dressing himself to match the temperatures. He’d titter and chatter his teeth if only he could move his limbs freely… or simply because he knew how much it bothered Draco to see him like that. Really, Draco ought to start sneaking into the Gryffindor dorms each morning and laying out a proper outfit for Harry by his bed. He could even kiss him good morning, while he was at it… maybe slip into bed with him, make sure he started the day properly warm. 

He got a scarlet bean that tasted like cherries. Sue opened her mouth to ask him a question, eyes teary from how tipsy she was, certainly planning on asking something incredibly inappropriate, but Hermione beat her to it. Furthermore, Hermione wasn’t tipsy but rather eerily sharp when she spoke:

‘Were you and Harry already together during that Quidditch game?’ 

The gentle ease that had been reigning inside him, coloured firewhiskey crimson, evaporated. Sunk right through his esophagus, weighing impossibly in his stomach, the memory of Harry spiraling towards the grass. Some sort of bitterness must have shown on his face, for the table quieted. 

‘No.’ 

Harry’s gaze settled on him, curious, but Draco didn’t look away from Granger. 

‘But what you told me in the infirmary. That was already true?’

And what had he told her? Oh, he’d been so reckless in all his conversations with Hermione - letting her know he liked Harry that night at the House Party, then showing up like a faithful puppy at the infirmary, so eager to apologize, shouting over morals and responsibility and who loved Harry best. He’d said that, hadn’t he? Because it had sounded preposterous not to, _needless,_ when he’d been so obvious. Of course he loved Harry - how had Hermione not seen it from the start, when he showed up at the antechamber with those bloody treacle tarts, or even before, when he’d nearly had a fit over the thought of Harry asking that girl Leanne out, or even years ago, since first year, when he followed Harry around like a kindergartener with a crush? 

Merlin, Granger was supposed to be _smart._

He set his jaw. Let it be known, once and for all, so she’d never doubt him again, how devoted he was. 

‘It’s always been true,’ he told her. 'Wasn't it the same with you and Ron?'

Hermione looked pleased. 

'Yes.'

And they seemed to reach some kind of understanding, something solemnly trusting, like she’d finally accepted Draco into their lives, like she _believed_ him at once and saw him fit for Harry. The tension cracked, then ebbed away, and the table was freed from its disconcerted silence.

‘What on earth was that about?’ asked Dean, at the same time as Finnigan said ‘That was a lot more than one question.’

‘It’s Harry’s turn,’ Hermione simply said. 

Harry impatiently picked a bean - wet dirt, it turned out - and drank his shot without batting an eye. The game progressed. Harry jabbed him in the thigh. 

‘Well, _tell_ me,’ he demanded, eyes burning with curiosity. And Draco _had_ told him once, when the Alihotsy had made everything so hedonistic pink, and he wouldn’t tell him again, not for a while, certainly not there. 

‘I believe Granger might finally like me,’ he answered carefully. 

The look Harry sent him was unimpressed.

‘You don’t get to talk about me like I’m not here and then be bloody cryptical about it.’

‘It was your friend who started.’ 

Harry huffed. ‘You’re such a bloody child-’ 

Draco kissed him, long and firm with the hint of despair that lingered from the memory of that Quidditch game, the picture of Harry small and bruised in that infirmary bed. Tangled fingers into the hair at the base of his neck - cold, of course, and Draco was definitely going to get him some warmer clothes; gripped him tightly there and angled his head to properly deepen the kiss. Harry made a low sound, leaned closer for a moment, digging nails into Draco’s thighs with the sweetest sting, then forced himself away, his eyes shining lustful and surprised. 

‘Such a child,’ he repeated, smiling this time. ‘Answer me this, then: what you said about Hermione and Ron… Are we dating as well, then?’ 

Draco regarded him like he’d grown a second head.

‘Of course we’re bloody dating.’

Harry’s smile quirked into a smirk. ‘Good. Just wanted to make sure, since we’re a bit shit at _talking_ things through.’ 

‘Well, so that I don’t leave you with any doubts,’ Draco murmured, pulling Harry a little closer into the curve of his side. ‘We’re dating. Exclusive dating. Boyfriends dating, though I hate the term. Which means two things: first, you’ll _never_ call me ‘mate’ again, I am much, _much_ more than that; secondly, next time Finnigan calls you ‘doll’ you’re going to knee him in the balls.’ 

Harry snorted. ‘He does that in a friendly way, you know?’

‘Finnigan hasn’t done anything _just_ to be friendly since he reached puberty,’ Draco drawled. ‘Besides,’ he added, a little lower, closer to Harry’s ear, ‘I’m the only one who gets to call you those names, alright, sweetheart?’ 

Harry’s face went very pink and his eyes very wide, snapping to the rest of the table as if he was frightened someone else might have heard. Draco had been right - it was incredibly entertaining to watch him squirm, when it was his doing. 

‘Don’t ever call me that in public again, you git.’ 

Draco smirked. ‘And in private?’ 

Harry didn’t look at him, keeping his gaze stubbornly on the game unrolling in front of them. But he did press a little closer to Draco, and after a small pause he answered, a hushed word only Draco would have heard over the chattering around the table, intoned in the wickedest, most tempting way imaginable:

‘Please.’ 

Draco’s eyes darkened. He kissed the top of Harry’s head - a promise - and gripped his shoulder unforgivingly tight for the rest of the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	16. Celebrating with Firewhiskey

The casual conversation continued, spread, split over successive drinks. Hog’s Head became fuller and fuller; old, grisly wizards were ogling their tables. When they at last left the pub, the moon hung high. It was about the hour of the night when Draco usually forced himself to leave, when something usually went wrong and he cowered back to Hogwarts with Hogsmeade’s twinkling lights a taunt in the horizon. This night, instead, he walked tall and relaxed besides Harry, no intentions of parting, cherishing each time their entwined fingers swung back and forth between their bodies as they walked down the street.

The group had decided to find a comfortable spot at the Three Broomsticks. When they were halfway there, however, Harry halted, yanking at Draco’s arm, and spoke loud enough most of them could hear:

‘Draco and I are going to get some shots at Kettle Bottom first. Meet you after, alright?’ 

And then he was pulling him down an alley between crooked houses, clearly not expecting an actual response from his friends. 

‘We’re going for shots then, are we?’ 

‘We are,’ Harry hummed, still pulling him briskly through the sinuous streets. 

Kettle Bottom was the same as always, immersed in its unwavering aesthetic, dipped in photographic permanence. Red lights, Blodwyin Bludd’s rough vocals rumbling like tight waves near the floor and up the dark walls, uncoordinated bodies pressed together and the heady scent of alcohol sticky in the air. Draco had quite warmed up to the place; it felt natural, squeezing his way through the crowd and planting his elbows on the bartop. 

‘Oy! Two shots of vodka, please,’ Harry ordered. He was thrumming with excitement, eyes glazed, muscles lax and twitching restlessly, practically seeping firewhiskey from his pores.

Draco wondered if he himself looked quite so noticeably drunk. 

‘You know, Harry,’ Draco began, careful. ‘We’ve drank quite a bit already at Hog’s Head.’

‘Can’t keep up, _Malfoy_?’ Harry teased the name - and really, lit in red, his eyes twinkling with challenge, he was irresistible. 

Not that Draco had to tell him that. It was important to keep his gushing to a moderate level - not for the sake of Harry’s ego, no, Draco would spoil him to the point of narcissism if he could, Harry _deserved_ it, but rather to keep his own self-control in check. 

‘Do you always drink this much?’ he asked instead. 

‘I’ve built a high tolerance,’ Harry shrugged. He did it evasely, though, eyes skittering to the streaked bartop, clearly intending to drop the subject. Not embarrassed, not bragging either: a delicate matter, nonetheless, and Draco wondered if his drinking - the entire group’s drinking, their convoluted outings, their long nights in the cold, were not only a rebellion against the time they’d lost with the war but a way to _cope_ with it. Ron had told him that Harry had nightmares that day in the greenhouses, hadn’t he? That he wandered around at night because of them. Time spent in Hogsmeade’s freezing streets was time he wouldn’t have to spend tossing and turning in bed. Safer in the cold than inside his own head. 

He wouldn’t ask. It was the type of honesty that was offered, not demanded. 

The bartender poured a transparent fluid into the little glasses. Draco eyed it skeptically. 

‘Is this Muggle, then?’ 

‘Yeah,’ Harry hummed, distinctly pleased. ‘You know, I love a lot of things about the wizardry world, but Muggle drinks have always been better.’

Draco held the little glass between his thumb and index finger, watching the liquid sway. 

‘Are you sure?’ 

‘You can doubt _it_ , but you should trust me,’ Harry smirked. ‘Just keep in mind: it’s gonna burn. Bottoms up.’ 

He downed the shot without another word, and Draco followed a millisecond later. It was horrible, _terrible,_ lighter fluid spreading wildfires to his stomach, and Draco could hardly believe that Harry drank it that often, that he seemed downright _giddy_ when he put down the glass. 

‘Thoughts?’ 

‘This ought to be illegal.’ 

Harry laughed. ‘Do you still feel the burn?’ he asked. When Draco nodded, his eyes darkened. ‘Well, let me feel it.’ 

And he kissed him, hands lifting to his shoulders, using the support to stretch up and properly lean into Draco’s mouth. His lips were warm, and Draco’s mouth tingled still with lingering flames, and the press of their chests reignited in him the hunger he’d been suppressing since the game, when Harry had been sitting so close, so pretty, so _wanton_. Harry’s tongue slipped inside for a taste, catching the burn of vodka, and Draco let out a low growl, a sound meant to _warn_ , gripping Harry’s hips. 

‘You know,’ Harry murmured into his mouth. ‘We could have had shots at the Three Broomsticks.’ 

‘Your mind wanders to the strangest places,’ Draco snorted, impatient, searching Harry’s lips again. 

‘I just mean,’ Harry’s eyes met his with an unmistakable darkness. ‘I wanted to come _here._ It has a bloody fantastic loo.’ 

Draco’s smirk grew lecherously slow.

‘Oh, yeah? Nice and private, Potter?’ he drawled, punctuating the words with a teasing bite at Harry’s lip. 

‘Yeah, and-’ Harry’s little cut off moan was drowned by the music and chattering around them. ‘-and a sink that’s- ah, that’s at a bloody great height.’ 

Draco huffed a laugh, heat curling up inside him at the vivid, _lewd_ thought of Harry perched on that sink, legs spread so nicely to fit Draco between them, thighs trembling against Draco’s hips. He trailed a hand to Harry’s lower back, just an inch too low for innocent - two inches, maybe three, because he’d drunk too much, and control was already fickle in sobriety - and used it to start coaxing Harry through the crowd and towards the narrow stairs. 

‘Well, let’s see it then, shall we?’ 

The bathroom - blessed be Merlin - didn’t have a queue. As soon as the faceless drunk inside stumbled out, they were replacing him in the cramped space, slamming the door shut behind them, shedding their robes in a frenzy and kissing against it. 

The place was as small as the stall from the Three Broomsticks had been. It didn't much matter - more of an excuse to press against Harry, to compact muscles together and have him flat against the door. Oh, and the firewhiskey had made Harry impatient: he tugged at Draco's hair, carved nails into his shoulder blade to pull him impossibly closer and bit ruthlessly at his lip, a scarlet flame between Draco's palms, ever shifting and all consuming. 

'Draco, fuck,' Harry groaned, licking the seam of his lips. He moved his thigh, the little tease, so it brushed Draco's dick. Draco ground down once, the friction through their clothes fueling his growing erection, and muffled a rough sound against Harry's cheek. 

'This really was an excellent idea,' he murmured with a dark smirk, catching an earlobe between his teeth and rolling the little tender nub of flesh with his tongue. It flashed the vision of him doing the same to Harry's nipples, just like he'd done in the Potions classroom, toying with sensitive flesh, showing Harry how pleasant it could be - because Harry would be diligent when he jerked off, Draco _knew_ it, he was one for five hushed minutes in the night, he wouldn't explore, he wouldn't tease himself. No, that was Draco's role, and if only he had the _time_ he'd make sure every inch of Harry was attended to, skin prickly and overstimulated, pink, sweaty, his nipples sucked red and aching until his eyes were glistening the most delicious shade of desperate. But he didn't have the time, nor exactly the most adequate surface, and he didn't like the thought of taking off Harry's shirt and exposing his already freezing skin to the air.

But there'd be other times. They were _dating_. Chances were there'd be _lots_ of other times, and the thought alone rolled a new wave of heat through his stomach.

Harry shivered when Draco sucked more harshly at his earlobe, then pressed hands into his chest, trying to push him further into the bathroom. 

'Draco, fucking move- the sink.' 

Draco huffed a laugh, releasing the reddened flesh from between his teeth and starting to walk them to the pedestal sink. Harry had been right: it was a perfect height, right at Harry's hips, and Draco pushed him back firmly until his arse hit the edge. 

'Do you want to sit down, love?' 

Harry went a little tense at that, kissed a little harder, stepped backwards to sit on the stained ceramic - lucky, that Harry had that reaction, since Draco had gone a little weak with it as well, a little breathless as the endearment spilled unbidden from his lips. But Harry _liked_ it, probably didn't think Draco meant anything by it, probably just thought it sweet, and Draco could definitely give him sweet, sicklier than those nasty treacle tarts, and it'd still only be a fraction of what he felt. 

Harry's arms wrapped around his neck while they kissed - but the edge of the sink was slim, and Draco's hands were so greedily frenzied in their touch that he didn't quite support him, and Harry nearly toppled over the side. He steadied himself by clipping his thighs tightly against Draco's hips, legs so pretty and trembling around his waist, and Draco moaned at the sensation. 

'We might be a little too drunk for this,' Harry snorted, shifting on the sink for a better position. 

'We were drunk the first time,' Draco remarked. Harry's chin was tilted up, exposing the curve of his neck, and Draco leaned down to mouth at it. 'Are we planning to defile every pub in the village?' 

'No,' Harry breathed out, a hand twisted in Draco's hair. 'The loo at Hog's Head wouldn't work.' 

'We don't _need_ a loo,' Draco trailed off to suck at a spot in Harry's neck, a pretty little place just over the collar, high enough that Harry wouldn't quite be able to cover it. He closed his teeth softly around it, eliciting a hiss from Harry - he hoped it bloomed deep red, so Harry could look at it the next morning and remember Draco's lips, and blush deep enough to match it. 'A good alcove would do, if you could be quiet.' 

Harry suppressed a moan at that - quickly, but not enough that Draco couldn't hear the wanton beginnings of it, or feel the way his throat bobbed beneath his lips. He glared at Draco then, but it was half-hearted. 

'Like _you_ would keep quiet without a problem.' 

'It'd be difficult,' Draco conceded, the vicious start of a smirk forming on his lips. 'Then again, people would be more likely to hear you than me. You get quite high-pitched when you're hard, Harry.' 

'Oh, sod off,' Harry groaned, all the anger undercut by a breathless laugh. He did twist Draco's hair in his fingers as revenge. Draco, to match, bit Harry's neck again, right next to the bruise he'd been working on. 'If you insist on biting, could you do it somewhere discreet?' Harry said, starting on the top button of his shirt to try and expose more skin. 

Draco grabbed him by the wrist. 

'Defeats the purpose, love,' he said, mouth grazing his second bruise - and Harry tensed again at the name, thighs closing tighter against Draco's hips. Draco wished he could call him that forever: it was as honest as he could be. 'I want people to see.' 

'Flitwick will ask. He asks about fucking _everything._ '

Harry could convince himself otherwise, but at that moment his voice was nothing if not a whine. 

'Then you'll tell him who gave them to you.' 

'You wish, Malfoy,' Harry drawled, going for the button again. 'Just-' 

Draco grabbed his wrist more firmly this time. 

'Shirt on, Harry. You've been freezing all night.' 

Harry's laugh shook his entire body; their cocks rubbed against each other through their clothes, and they both bit off a moan. 

'You're scared I'll be fucking _cold,_ Draco? I don't actually think that's even possible right now.' 

And he was going for his shirt _again,_ the brat, so Draco forcefully took his hand and pinned it to the edge of the sink. 

'Shirt _on_ , Harry,' he said, words low; and then, just to try, just to tease, he added, 'You keep your hand there and I'll reward you, alright, sweetheart?' 

The sound Harry made was bloody _obscene_. 

'You know,' Draco smirked, his lips an inch from Harry's, searching the aftertaste of that broken moan. When he returned his hand to Harry's hip, Harry's own hand stayed on the edge of the sink, all proper and obedient, impatience so tightly contained, and a new, dark surge of want ran over him. 'That night, in that drinking game, I never quite figured out what your kinks were. I suppose I'm making up for that now, aren't I?' 

'Whatever, Draco,' Harry huffed, rocking desperately against him. 'Can my _jeans_ come off?'

'If you ask nicely.' 

'You're unbearable.' 

Harry undid his jeans, hissing as he drew the zipper out. A wet spot had already formed on his underwear. It was endearing, in some way. Love truly made people senseless. 

'Yours too,' Harry said next. This time, Draco stilled his hand again. 

'Patience. We'll do you first.' 

'We don't have _all_ the time in the world, you know?' Harry mused.

'The door's locked,' Draco shrugged, teasing Harry's waistband. 'Come on, love, I bet it aches.' 

He gingerly took Harry's cock out. It glistened red and swollen between his fingers, twitching a little. Harry did a broken little noise, nails ruthless on the back of Draco's neck. Not that Draco minded - rather, he hoped that, if he twisted enough in front of a mirror the next day, he'd be able to see the imprints. 

He began to stroke Harry in earnest; full, firm movements with a little flick of his wrist, a gentle thumb teasing the slit just to make Harry hiss, to make his thighs convulse so prettily at each side of Draco's waist. Draco himself was beginning to feel a little desperate, spurred on by the sounds, the sensations, the bloody sinful sight of Harry in that position, all spread for him, welcoming him between the curve of his legs, squeezing around him… hadn't he said, just a moment ago, back at the pub, that he figured Draco would fuck him first? Did he think about it often? Did he know the answer as soon as Pansy had asked the question? Would he seem just as wanton, just as open when Draco was inching inside him? Would he keep his hands still by his sides, not touching his weeping cock, if Draco promised him a reward? 

'Fuck, faster,' Harry gasped, his head dropped to Draco's shoulder. He was bucking into Draco's fist, frenzied, trembling, nearing his edge. 

'Do you remember the first time I made you come?' Draco asked, almost lighthearted, though his tone was wrecked. He made no move to quicken his strokes. 'Harry? Answer.' 

Harry just nodded against his shoulder, more focused on following Draco's touch. At this point, Draco had to keep a vice like grip on his hip with his free hand to make sure he didn't topple off the sink. 

'Do you think about it often?' 

'For fuck's sa-' 

Draco squeezed his cock a little, just to cut him off, then kissed his hair in apology. 

'Don't rush. I'll make you come eventually. Just answer me first.' 

'Yes,' Harry hissed. 'I think about it.' 

'And you remember what I had you say then? What I had you scream?' 

Another nod. Draco was so aroused he couldn't help thrusting into empty air, desperately searching friction. 

'Then you know what I want you to say now, don't you, Harry? Come on, love, I've wanted you to for so long. Say my name.' 

He finally picked up the pace into something ruthless and frantic, tight, like he found Harry liked best, bringing him right over the edge. And Harry - wonderful, beautiful Harry - did just as asked:

'Draco, fuck, _Draco_ ,' he moaned against his neck, twitching, convulsing, breathing dazed and haggard. 

'That's it, sweetheart,' Draco encouraged, milking him through it, thick spurts of come all over his fingers. 'Fuck, look at you.' 

'Would you get the hell out?'

The voice was scratched and angry, right from outside the door. Their moment alone had ended, it seemed. 

'Out in a minute,' Draco shouted before he set to fix Harry's clothes. His arousal was a bothersome urge he pushed primly down, trying to will his erection away while Harry came down from his high. 'You alright there, love?' 

Harry's blink was sticky slow. 

'Why wouldn't I be?' 

'You said, the night I blew you, that alcohol and sex didn't mix well,' Draco reminded, a gentle hand taming Harry's hair. It was hopeless: the boy looked incredibly dishevelled, and obviously in post-orgasmic bliss. Draco wasn't sure if he wanted to share this side of Harry with the crowd downstairs; no, he wanted to keep Harry in his arms and kiss him until his fire was back and his hips had stopped twitching. 'Do you feel ready to go? I can tell the arsehole to wait another minute.' 

Again, Harry's expression was dazed. He was stupidly endearing like this - Draco ought to keep him in bed for a week, always sated and soft, either writhing or sleeping. 

Then, in a sliver of a second, his eyes blew dark again, a little tremulous tensing in his jaw as he said:

'We should switch.' 

'I'm sorry?'

'You haven't come yet,' Harry answered simply, and then he was slipping away from the narrow space between Draco and the sink, his body still shaking a little. Draco turned to watch him, his own back against the sink now. 

'Would you bloody come out. There's a line!' insisted the voice. Draco was opening his mouth to answer when Harry dropped to his knees, all fluid and pliant, right in front of Draco, and the breath was knocked out of him.

'Harry…'

'Come on, I want to,' Harry rasped out, already reaching for Draco's clothes. 'Been wanting to all night.' 

Draco _knew_ it was a horrid idea. He _knew_ there was a queue, and he was usually respectful of them, and if he said no now, he was sure Harry would obey - oh, because he was so obedient when he chose to be, so good for Draco, choosing to comply when all his instincts - all his life - urged him to defy. But Harry's words were irresistible, Harry's eyes and Harry's tone were even more so, and he very simply couldn't say no. 

Still, Harry was still dazed from his orgasm, and it wasn't like he was sober. Draco ought to make sure he understood the situation. 

'You know,' he started carefully, stopping his hips from bucking forward when Harry finally unzipped him. 'That man could burst in here any second.' 

Harry eyed him darkly, not faltering in the slightest.

'Then come fast.' 

And then he had Draco's cock in his hand, twitchy fingers stroking it firmly, fingertips grazing his balls - and he angled it just right, gripping the base and taking the head into his mouth to suckle on it for a couple of seconds before he was venturing further, opening wider, welcoming half of Draco's cock inside. 

'I'm sorry, could you please hurry?' came a different voice, tamer than the first one, followed by a short knock on the door. 

Harry hummed a bit at that, lips buzzing around Draco, and Draco suppressed a wrecked groan. When he looked down at Harry - beautiful, unbelievable Harry, who was so flushed still, surely all sensitive and sweaty under his sorry shirt, and yet on his _knees_ for him - he found the darkest twinkle in his eyes, a desperate shade, even though he'd just come. 

'Merlin,' Draco breathed, tangling his fingers in Harry's hair. 'You like this, don't you? You like us hurrying, us keeping quiet?' 

Harry moved to pull off and answer, a hint of humour in his expression, but Draco stilled him with a tighter grip on his hair. 

'No, you stay there, love, right there on my cock,' he murmured, moving just a little forward so his dick inched further into Harry's mouth. Harry fluttered his eyelashes - like he did it on purpose, the twat, so pretty, so bloody _unfair_ \- and took a wispy breath through his nose. 'You don't need to answer. I can _see_ that you like it. Fuck, d'you like it too, when I said I'd fuck you in an alcove? Right where anyone could walk by and see?' 

Harry just moaned in answer. His mouth was impossibly hot - from the vodka, from the firewhiskey, from those bloody fluorescent shots they'd had at Hog's Head that had burnt Draco's tongue - and Draco could barely keep himself together.

'What- fuck, what a little pervert you turned out to be,' Draco huffed, too breathless to be a proper laugh, too wanton to be a proper jab. 

Still, when Harry withdrew to catch his breath, he asked, a little smirk on his shining lips:

'Is that a problem?' 

His voice was ragged - Draco _loved_ it like this, loved knowing _why_ it was like this - and there was a more persistent knock on the door, and his balls curled up tight and desperate, ready to come. 

'Definitely not- fuck, Harry, come on, come on,' he muttered, pleaded, tugging on Harry's hair until he was swallowing around him again, all wet, sinful heat. 'That's it, that's it sweetheart, fuck, you're so _good._ ' 

And he was coming, hard and with flashes of white, leaning over Harry in erratic movements, hips trembling and fingers punishing on his black hair. Harry gagged a little, an ill-contained cough as his throat worked around Draco's cock, milking him dry. 

Harry kept his lips around him until his climax subsided, tongue lapping ever so lightly at it, licking off lingering drops of come without tormenting the over-sensitive flesh. When Draco's breath had steadied, and his grip on his hair gentled, he withdrew. 

'This is your last-' 

'Oh, will you bloody _wait_ a moment?' Draco snapped, voice breaking. The man outside kept banging on the door. 

Harry snorted, standing back up. 

'Come on, then, before they barge in.' 

Draco sent him a half-hearted glare, still fussing with his clothes. 

'We ought to stop doing this in places where we can get interrupted,' he said, catching Harry by the arm to pull him against his chest.

Harry smirked. 'I for one quite like it.' 

'I know you do,' Draco snorted, lazily kissing his cheek. 'I also know you'd like what I'd do to you if I had enough time.' 

Harry's gaze darkened a little at that, but he pushed the spike of arousal down, setting his jaw and stepping away.

'Ready?' 

'Does it matter?' 

Harry picked up their discarded robes and opened the door, head primly leaned down, eyes on the floor. There was a row of men around it, tall, clad in black and staring with drunken eyes. 

'D'ya boys mistake this for a bedroom, did ya?' snickered one of them. The other men laughed, and each one made sure to elbow the two of them as they pushed their way past and down the little staircase. Overall, it wasn't the worst reaction they could have gotten - no shouting, no pushing at chests. They quickly stumbled out of Kettle Bottom, slipping arms into their robes. 

The night felt incredibly cold in comparison to the overheated bathroom. Much quieter too. No expectant buzzing in their ears, no ringing, no blood rushing. 

Simply the lingering tendrils of music and the wind. 

Their pace was slow as they made their way to the Three Broomsticks. Draco put one arm around Harry's shoulders, and they stared lazily at the dark sky.

'Hogwarts has no privacy,' Harry sighed, a low, wistful little sound. 

'I'll buy us a flat, then.' 

Harry laughed. 'Oh yeah? Where?' 

'Where'd you want it?' 

There was a pause as Harry mulled over it. He had a little smile, like it was a lighthearted, drunken joke. It could be. Draco wouldn't say a word against it. But it didn't have to be - Draco had a comfortable sum of money, the bright side of the Malfoy name. If Harry wanted it - wanted _him,_ past Hogwarts, out in the real world - then Draco could get them some modest place. 

'London.' 

'A flat in London it is,' Draco murmured, soft, fond, pressing his lips to Harry's hair.

At the Three Broomsticks, the group was gathered around one of the tables, a circular one that was too small for the lot of them, which meant they’d pulled up some chairs haphazardly around it. Their bags of sweets were pooled in the center, surrounded by a wall of drinks, and mostly emptied. At first sight, they seemed like they’d reached the phase of drunk that ebbs into a dazed lull, and they spoke in hushed, fickle strings. 

Ron, when he spotted them, contorted in his chair and raised his glass to Harry. 

‘Finally, mate, we thought you two had run off. D’you want a drink? It’s the american stuff you like.’ 

‘Thanks,’ Harry’s smile was crooked; he dropped a hand to squeeze Ron’s shoulder warmly while the other took the glass. It made for a heady sight, seeing Harry’s Adam’s apple bob while fully knowing what that throat had been doing just a moment ago. ‘D’you think there’s any other chairs we can steal?’ 

‘You can take mine,’ came Pansy’s voice. She stood, navy dress shimmering lightly, and drew a polite smile. ‘Draco, join me for a shot.’ 

They went, Draco primly resisting the urge to look back at Harry from over his shoulder as he headed to the bar. There was only one stool empty: Pansy took it, crossing her legs, and Draco leaned on the bartop to her left. 

‘I’m not having a shot.’ 

‘Hardly matters. I just wanted to leave _that_ for a moment,’ she tipped her head subtly towards the table behind them. ‘They’re all so… well, _golden_ , aren’t they? Like the sun during one of those heat waves - I was dying for a cloud to come.’

Draco smirked. ‘They’ve always been like that. You’ve always known that, so why are you here?’ 

‘You were coloured blue, dear, I thought you’d need the support.’ 

‘You’ve paid me no mind all night,’ Draco retorted. ‘You’re here for one of those insufferable little sun rays, aren’t you?’ 

The look Pansy sent him was quietly pleased.

‘Don’t be curious, Draco, it never ends anywhere. Here, share a butterbeer with me.’ 

The bartender poured it until the dense foam was brimming from the tall glass. Pansy drank heartily, while Draco, who was beginning to feel a pesky headache, took a measured sip, and they both turned ever so slightly to watch the group. Draco’s gaze, as it was wont to, searched Harry: he hadn’t taken Pansy’s seat, planted precisely where Draco had left him, his hand still on Ron’s shoulder and the glass of lobe-blaster near his lips. From that angle, only his profile was visible, but Draco could still easily see how disheveled he was, hair inexcusable and shirt creased - shirt, yes, since the incorrigible bloody fool had already hung his robes on the back of Ron’s chair - and what did that mean but that every other patron at the pub could see the same, and appreciate just how thoroughly fucked out Harry looked, and wonder who had put him in such a state? 

‘Your Harry drinks quite a lot, doesn’t he?’ 

Draco sighed. He reckoned when Ron got his glass back it’d be empty. 

‘I think nights are difficult for him.’ 

‘That’s what you’re for,’ Pansy remarked, an eyebrow cocked pointely. ‘Make them easier.’ 

‘Trauma hardly works that way.’ 

‘It doesn’t work by drinking it away either, and Harry’s surely eager to try that,’ Pansy said. ‘All I mean is that we all have nightmares. _He_ must have them more than most. It’s not foolish to watch out for him.’

The words stirred something worried and heavy in Draco’s stomach. Of course he’d thought that, he’d _known_ that, but concern tended to fade when he saw Harry’s friends drink as much as he did. After all, it wasn’t like Harry was drinking alone at some measly hours in the morning, was he? He went out with his friends, they all drank, all had a bit too much, and it wasn’t properly unhealthy. A distraction. Stress relieving. It didn’t have to be more than that, but Pansy made it seem so _obvious_.

‘I was perfectly fine without you telling me that.’

She shrugged, though not unkindly.

‘Sometimes you need the cloud.’

‘You’re paying for the beer,’ Draco huffed. 

‘I suppose that’s fair,’ she smirked, unearthing some sickles from her purse. ‘Now, I think we’ve brooded sufficiently, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s get back to the sunshine.’ 

Back at the table, Harry found two chairs for them and they sat in a little huddle besides Sue and Alicia. It was much easier to return to his prior calm there, immersed in the light, inconsequential chatter, Harry breathing steady and with a small, constant smile right by his side.The topic shifted back to Slughorn’s test and the actual effects of Alihotsy. Dean said he’d wanted to try it, just to see what it felt like, but he’d been too afraid he’d run out of breath and faint right in front of the professor. With a very privately amused smile, Harry mentioned that the Gillyweed would have kept him safe. 

As time passed and the night deepened, Draco relaxed again, nursing his headache. He was awful drunk, that much was clear - and still, whenever he watched Harry share a few drinks with the others, he himself indulged in his firewhiskey. A compulsion, it was, to keep up with Harry. It blurred his vision even more, turned his hand into the peskiest jittery thing, and melted right into the dazed feeling from his earlier orgasm, weighing in his bones.

‘Draco? Are you alright?’ 

‘Of course. Tell me, what time is it?’ 

‘A bit past four, I should think,’ Harry frowned. ‘Are you _actually_ alright?’

‘You’re fussing.’ 

‘You’re _cross-eyed_ ,’ Harry retorted, but his concern had somewhat ebbed, replaced by humour. ‘Was the vodka too much for you?’ 

Draco smirked, looking back at the others as he murmured, ‘I’d say what came _after_ the vodka was much more intense.’

The problem was, however, that the vodka _had_ been too much. Draco felt tired. Dangerously about to retch, heavy-lidded and slow moving. And everyone else still teetered on the risky edge of fun, the phase of alcohol that’s so _colourful_. 

They obviously intended to stay for much longer. 

Draco felt close to collapsing.

And still, when Harry stood to get a shot with Neville and Hermione, he promptly followed. Stumbled behind them, feeling each shaky step wounding his dignity, because his heart was hopelessly strung to Harry, and his urge to impress was too, and Pansy’s words were still ringing in his ears. 

‘What are we having then?’ Harry asked them, planting his elbows excitedly on the bartop. 

Hermione perused the colourful, glistening bottles cramped on the shelves behind the bar.

‘Something strong before we go, I reckon.’

‘You’re leaving?’ Draco managed to ask, leaning heavily on the bar. 

‘In a little while,’ Neville nodded. ‘We’ve been taking notes on our Mimbulus every morning, so we really shouldn’t stay too late. I’m thinking some absinthe, no?’ 

‘That horrid green thing?’ 

‘The one and only,’ Harry smirked. ‘Let’s do that, Draco’s already had vodka tonight, it’ll be a good dip into the Muggle side of things.’ 

Draco glared half-heartedly. He couldn’t drink any more. He’d make a fool of himself. But Hermione was doing it, bloody _Longbottom_ was doing it, and Harry’s little smile reminded him of that stupid, _perfect_ flat in London, and he could hardly say no.

Hermione ordered the shots, four hideous green things splayed innocently before them. The countdown was rushed. They all coughed as they slammed their glasses down, little green drops splashing on the bar. It was still the nastiest drink Draco had ever had - not the singlest hint of pleasantness in it, just a burn unbearable down his throat. And it was worse this time: he could barely keep it down, and as it settled in his stomach he had the most overwhelming, frightening impression that all of him was liquid, all of him was crumbling over his legs, and he folded himself even further over the bartop as he tried to contain a coughing fit. 

‘D’you know,’ Harry said, watching him with amusement, ‘Your hand is shaking.’

‘So is yours,’ Draco replied. It was his tone - ragged, with the obvious strain of someone trying to keep their insides together - that made Harry’s smile fall. 

‘I have a higher tolerance,’ Harry spoke slowly. ‘Do you feel alright?’

‘You’re fussing again.’ 

Harry sighed, stepping a bit closer, so he was between Draco and Hermione and Neville, who were staring strangely. His hand pressed soothingly at Draco’s upper back. 

‘Draco.’ 

‘I might die. It’s your fault.’

‘Of course it is,’ Harry huffed a little laugh, though his concern didn’t ebb. ‘Can you walk? Maybe you ought to go back, Hermione and Neville are going anyway.’

And he said it so calmly, like the easiest of solutions, and the _promise_ of it was so good: a short walk in refreshing air, some water and his bed at the end of it. But he couldn’t very well go, could he? He _always_ went, could never make it to the end of their outings. This time, in their first night as a couple, he’d stay with the rest of them. Besides, he was supposed to be looking over Harry. Kind, gorgeous Harry, whose hand was drawing circles on his back. Harry, who was never in bed at night. Harry, for whom Draco had been so scared just a bloody moment ago, and who was now standing tall and sure and watching him crumble. 

He supposed it was some sort of karma. Care too much, become the object of concern. 

‘I’ll stay if you’re staying.’

Harry laughed, a brief sound, but that seriousness never melted away.

‘You know, the last time you had that kind of thought process you pushed me off my bloody broom,’ he said. ‘Trust me, I’ll be alright.’ 

‘You do look a little green, Draco,’ Neville interjected, eyes so wide, so bloody eager to help that it chipped at Draco’s resolve. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to go back to Hogwarts: he could make some tea and lay down in the refreshing coolness of the dungeons. Besides, Hermione and Neville were hardly bad company. They were actually two of the most bearable of the group. It’d be much more pleasant than hanging around the Three Broomsticks with a head made of lead and that fucking ungodly absinthe swirling in his bloodstream. But then came Pansy’s words, all sharp and firm, waking the same hissing voice inside him that had controlled him in that Quidditch game so many days ago - he couldn’t quite leave Harry there alone, could he? He’d drink so much, most likely stay with his friends until dawn, and with Hermione gone there wouldn’t be many responsible people there to guide the group. What if they got into some drunken fight? Drank too much and went into some sort of fit? Went back to the Shrieking Shack and fell down those decrepit stairs? Really, Draco could be feeling a little - incredibly - sick, but he still had a sense of restraint the Gryffindors lacked. He could help if he stayed - certainly help more than if he didn’t. 

Then again, just like Harry had said, the last time he’d had such a thought Harry had ended up in the infirmary.

And Harry looked so genuinely worried. 

Not trying to get rid of him, nothing of the sort. A type of fond, raw concern that could very much look like love. 

‘Perhaps I’ll go, then.’ 

Harry’s smile widened with relief. He brought a hand to the back of his neck and kissed him quickly, lightly, a chaste brush of lips. 

‘Try and make it through the night, yeah?’ he teased.

‘I could tell you the same thing,’ Draco scoffed. ‘Don’t do anything stupid. For Merlin’s sake, keep yourself alive. 

‘That’s my specialty,’ Harry smirked. ‘Oh, quit worrying. I’m out quite often, you know?’ 

‘Yes, I know,’ Draco sighed. He brushed their lips together again, one parting gesture. ‘Oh, and Harry?’ 

‘Are you going to tell me not to dance with Seamus?’

‘No,’ Draco snorted. ‘I just thought you should know I bloody _hate_ Muggle drinks.’

Harry laughed, kissed him chastely and bid them goodbye again by the door. Then, they were stepping into the night, Harry was turning back into the pub, and it was just Draco, Hermione and Neville, the most stunted of groups under the moonlight. Of course, they were too golden-hearted to look annoyed over the whole thing, and they helped him through every step and corner, into Hogwarts and right down to the dungeons, where they eventually left him alone with unbearably kind, _worried_ looks. A bloody embarrassing ordeal, and Draco couldn’t stop thinking about it even as he stumbled into the dorms, wrestled out of his clothes and slipped into bed. He almost prayed that absinthe was the type of alcohol that turned nights into blurry, fickle things, so he could forget the entire thing. In the end, though, he couldn’t properly wish it, only because the rest of the night had been so _wonderful_. Everything about it, from the kiss at Honeydukes to lacing his arm over Harry’s shoulders in front of his friends to pinning his hips against that filthy sink. 

Wonderful. Brilliant. Unforgettable.

Not even bloody absinthe could take that away from him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	17. A Morning of Regret

The moment Draco woke, he was untethered to all physical things, and in him reigned a sweet reminder of gentle things. 

Then, his body came, and with it torment. 

‘Draco.’ 

‘Hm?’ 

‘I got you some tea.’ 

‘Sod off,’ Draco muttered, squinting dizzily at the blur that was Pansy sitting besides his bed. ‘Put it on the table, would you? Thank you.’ 

Pansy’s laugh was unfairly levelled for someone who’d drunk so much the night before. Perhaps she hadn’t drunk. No, she most likely hadn’t - how could she, when Draco had drunk all the alcohol in the entire bloody village?

‘You should have led with that, darling. Being hungover isn’t a pass for rudeness.’ 

‘Isn’t it?’ Draco huffed, shifting into a half-sitting position against the headboard. His head pounded, constricting, suffocating like his skull had shrunk too little for his brain. Even the dim light of the candles throughout the dorm room hurt his eyes. 

‘With me, nothing is. Are you going to drink it before it gets cold?’ 

‘I don’t think I can,’ he sighed. 

No, there was far too much required in bringing the cup to his lips. How pitiful he was. So hungover, and he’d left _early_ : how much longer had the others stayed - had _Harry_ stayed - dancing and drinking in Hogsmeade? They ought to have had a merry night without him. Honestly, it was just indecent that they could drink so much, that they could drink that vile _absinthe_ and not topple over the side. 

He shifted again, scratching his eyes with the back of his hand to get a clearer view of Pansy. She looked bloody well-rested. 

‘When did you leave?’ 

‘When did _I_ leave?’ 

‘When did _Harry_ leave?’ 

Pansy smirked. Her hand was on his knee over the covers, a soft pressure reminding him of bothersome legs and sickly insides, all twisted in knots and dry as deserts. No, he definitely wouldn’t drink the tea. He was nothing but a shrivelled mind at the moment. 

‘We all left after the sun rose. It looks quite beautiful from the Shrieking Shack, did you know? A shame you didn’t see it.’ 

Draco huffed. He didn’t quite mind it, actually. He saw the appeal of nights out, sure. The alcohol, the frenzy, the spontaneity of it all: enticing, addictive, and it had gotten him Harry. But he’d crawled into the quiet of his bed while the moon was still high and he’d liked that too. Preferred it, he thought. He’d have liked it even more if Harry had been laying with him.

‘He was alright, then?’ 

‘Danced a lot. _Laughed_ a lot,’ Pansy rolled her eyes. ‘Drank a lot too. Still handled it better than you did.’ 

‘Did you come here _just_ to tease me?’ 

Pansy hummed. ‘And to give you tea.’

Draco smiled at that, glancing at the steaming mug on the bedside table. Perhaps, when he’d regained sense of his body, he’d venture to drink it. 

‘Did you get it at the Great Hall?’

‘Where else would I get it from?’ Pansy cocked an eyebrow. She looked expectant, like something of interest might actually spill from Draco’s lips, and Draco knew he’d disappoint her. There was little on his mind besides Harry, such was the curse of love, and his words could reflect nothing else. 

‘So,’ his tone was measured. ‘Did you see them? The group. Were they up?’

‘For Merlin’s sake,’ Pansy squeezed his knee a little tighter - he was certain that, were he not under the covers, there’d be nails sinking into his skin. ‘I didn’t see _him._ I saw the Weasleys though - they’re hard to miss. Spinnet as well, I believe.’ 

‘Yes. Alright,’ Draco said, dispirited. ‘Thanks for the tea.’ 

‘You want me to leave, don’t you?’ 

‘You saw me drunk. I don’t want to talk to you ever again.’

Pansy sniffed, smoothing down her robes as she stood. ‘I hope your tea gets cold.’ 

She left, closing the door behind her. The dorm room plunged into silence once more, the air saturated, the other beds vacant and half-made. Draco settled into the warm peace of it, fitting his head on his pillow and shutting his eyes. He’d go back to sleep. He’d fly through the hours in his subconscious; when he managed to wake without his sight spinning he’d go for that tea, cold or not. Then, he’d trade his bed for the sofa in the common room and spend the rest of his day reading, staring into the void and wishing himself dead. 

And, inevitably, revising every little touch, every little word Harry said. Trying to conjure as many moments of that night as possible, for it’d been the night Harry had kissed him in front of his friends, and smiled so warmly when Draco had told him they were dating - and hadn’t there been some talk of a flat in London? Murky, grey in his mind, some mention of it, a lingering clench in his heart… he really shouldn’t have drunk that much. He should _remember_. 

But he _hadn't_ drunk that much, had he? Silly, the entire thing. The Muggle alcohol had done him in. The vodka, leaving cinders in his tongue; the absinthe, tipping him right over the edge. Reckless, really - he must have picked it up from Harry. 

Harry. Oh, Draco wondered how he felt, where he was, what he was thinking. Was he in bed as well? As hungover as Draco? Spread all soft in his bed, head plastered to his pillow, gaze smoothed by sleep and hair matted to his forehead - had he thought about Draco at all? Worried about him? Reviewed the night in his mind? Was he still sleeping, perhaps? If they truly had only returned to Hogwarts by dawn, then Harry would have had hardly any sleep. But the Weasleys were up; did that mean Harry was too? He and his impossibly high tolerance, all stupidly confident, like he could drink and drink and drink and never feel it. Maybe it was true. Maybe he was in the library right now, dressed and breakfasted, studying with Hermione. Maybe he hadn’t given Draco further than a passerby musing. 

No. Discomfort brought by pessimism. Draco had pined for years, and he was used to the frustration of unrequited love. But he was _dating_ Harry: better said, Harry was dating _him_. No, it didn’t mean love, but it meant care, and so too had the way Harry kissed him, and gazed at him throughout the night. 

Harry _ought_ to have thought of him. 

The question served, at least, to make him more awake. A bit later, he finally went for that tea. It cleared his head a little, dissolved the weight in it, made it easier to think. After less than an hour had gone past, and he’d grown tired of tossing and turning and clinging to the hope that he’d go back to sleep, he tried to stand. It wasn’t too hard, nor was it getting dressed. Moving all the way to the common room was tiresome - and shooing the first years that were sprawling there being unconscionably loud was worse. He forgot his book, didn’t quite have the will to go and fetch it, and so he settled for a day of looking at the waters of the lake. 

Not that it lasted long. No, because his body could be quite slow to get on with things, but his mind certainly hurried - sharpened, as it were, and decided, without seeking consultation, to pin on Harry in a tangle of those previous wonderings: what was he doing? where was he? how did he feel? 

Honestly, love was incredibly inconvenient. It made him want to _move_. 

He stumbled out the common room and into the dungeons. He’d find Harry - how difficult could it be? There were always Gryffindors pestering the halls, he’d simply ask one of them. It was worth the humiliation of letting them see him grey-skinned and floundering with uncoordinated feet. Yes, fuck them. Let them see him hungover, have a laugh, then tell him where the hell his Harry was. 

His thoughts led him up the Grand Staircase. Right in front of the Fat Lady - and Draco had never been quite so glad to see him - was Ron, waiting for one of the moving stairs to clasp on his level. 

‘Weasley,’ he called, wincing as his voice rattled shrill in his own head. 

Ron’s eyes were stale and unfriendly when they found him. At least _someone_ was as hungover as him.

‘D’you have to be quite so loud?’ 

The stairs Draco was on slid against the Fat Lady platform; Ron moved to get on them, but Draco stepped up first and stilled him with a hand on his chest. 

‘Get off, I was bloody waiting for those-’ 

‘They’ll be back,’ Draco dismissed, ignoring the glare Ron sent him. He did remove his hand, though. ‘Tell me something, would you? Have you seen Harry?’

Ron scoffed. He seemed incredibly unsurprised.

‘He’s in bed, Malfoy. He’ll come out eventually.’ 

Draco sent a flittering look at the Fat Lady. So beyond there was Harry, still hiding from the world. He’d managed to wake up for that Quidditch game, and he was hungover then as well - was it worse this time? 

‘Is he alright?’ 

‘No. He will be, though. Can I go n-’ the telltale sound of stone scraping on stone behind Draco signaled that the stairs were changing paths once more. Ron’s sigh was too tired to be properly angry. ‘You absolute fucking prick.’ 

‘Why _are_ you in a hurry? It’s bloody Saturday,’ Draco said, sharp, impatient, quickly deflating. He ought to be nice to Weasley, Harry would like it. The problem was Ron seemed to have no intentions of being nice to _him._ ‘Look, could you let me in?’ 

Ron actually laughed. It came out a hoarse, fleeting sound - Draco reckoned his throat still burnt as well. 

‘Are you bloody daft, mate? It’s the _Gryffindor_ dorms.’ 

And he said it with such conviction - such horror -, all blind loyalty to his House, to that sacred room of red and gold. God forbid a snake should slither in. 

‘Well, I’m not setting up shop there, am I? I just want to see my _boyfriend_ ,’ Draco huffed. He really did hate the word. Ron seemed to hate it more. 

‘Look, Malfoy-’ 

‘Just let me in, Weasley.’ 

‘No. Sod off, will you?’ 

‘What exactly _is_ your problem with me?’ Draco asked. He’d most likely regret the question: it was the sort of topic that would invariably lead to shouting and shoving, and he didn’t have the strength for that. But Ron had been so _curt_ lately. He'd been friendly at first, just like the rest of them, cautiously accepting of him into their group, but since he’d caught Draco and Harry in the Shrieking Shack he'd been so quietly judging, always deflecting, like if he looked away from the two of them quickly enough he could ignore how close they were, and Draco had _known_ he wasn’t yet quite liked, but he’d hoped that he’d been at least _forgiven_. 

‘My problem- are you bloody kidding me?’ Ron snapped, a furious glint in his eyes. Right on the edge, and Draco could retreat, and Draco could push. 

'No. Tell me.' 

It was like something burst; something Ron kept primly contained. Suddenly, there was red fury, unwavering, jaw set, eyes that pinned Draco in place, and Draco finally saw how he fit with Harry and Hermione. 

‘D’you know, Malfoy, everyone wants to move on. It’s the right thing in theory. Give people another chance, and all that. But guess what, Hermione told me you liked him since _before_ this. Before the War.'

Draco felt his blood go cold. Fucking Granger was supposed to be _principled_. 

'She-'

'Oh, don't give me that look,' Ron interrupted. 'D'you think she'd keep it all to herself? She told me, and she said we should let you be, and I’m here thinking: did you like him when you tried to Crucio him in that bathroom? In fourth year, when you made those badges? Every single fucking day that you pestered him, bullied him, bullied _all_ of us? Because if you did, if you liked him then, if you like him now, if _nothing's_ changed, then what’s to stop you from pestering him again? What’s to make me believe you’re not still that bloody bully that hurts the people he likes?’ 

Ron finished with a ragged breath. Finished with a look that was too heated for hostile. Finished, and Draco thought idly back to that exchange outside the greenhouses, where he’d mused that Ron could so easily plunge those pruning shears into his thigh. Perhaps the idea had really crossed Ron’s mind. 

He must have done a terrible effort to hold himself back. 

Because his words, everything about them… he hated Draco. Oh, Draco heard them and he hated _himself_. Hated that young Slytherin thing that only listened to what his father wanted and his blood hissed and his insecure little mind urged. He was always so _scared_. And loving Harry had always been so painful. The most pressing, inescapable reminder that something was irremediably wrong with him. And he could try to forget that now, now that Harry smiled back at him and there was some unbelievable glint of tenderness in his future, but Ron remembered. 

Ron remembered, and now, with a punch of nausea deep inside him, so did Draco. 

‘I was young.’ 

‘Brilliant excuse.’ 

‘You were awful to Granger as well, weren’t you?’ 

Ron took a step closer, suffocatingly close. He seemed quite capable of throwing Draco out the platform in that moment. Or perhaps Draco would fall on his own. His head hurt, he was reeling, balance was lost. 

‘Don’t even compare, Malfoy.’ 

Draco scoffed - and this time, when he spoke, his own voice had raised, his body unfurling tense and aggressive.

'You know what, Gryffindors are always so bloody condescending. Always waiting for everyone to be just _perfect_ all the time. I was a fucking kid, it’s not because I was in love that I knew what to do with it. If my father told me I should hate Harry, why wouldn’t I believe him?’ 

Ron rolled his eyes. ‘That’s how a lunatic thinks.’ 

‘That’s how a _kid_ thinks,’ Draco snapped. ‘It’s very easy to judge when you were raised by the angelic Weasleys. When did you ever have to think for yourself? You were _born_ good. Any shred of goodness _I_ have, I got it from watching you play heroes all the bloody time.’ 

And the confession washed over him in dense, breathless darkness, and he was nothing but a Malfoy, black and perverse, faceless, evil, no first name. 

‘You know I don’t want to hurt him,’ he murmured after a pause. 

‘Sure,’ Ron shrugged. 

‘You _know_.’ 

‘I know,’ Ron sighed, resigned, the type of tone Draco knew he couldn’t push. It was final. It was an effort. He wasn’t quite accepted, nor totally discarded. ‘Come the fuck in. But don’t say thank you. And don’t you dare tell anyone.’ 

And then he was walking to the Fat Lady, who looked quite affronted by the whole thing, and murmuring some word Draco couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood in his ears, and stepping through the narrow passage uncovered behind the canvas. 

Draco followed only by instinct. His mind was stunned.

The Gryffindor common room wasn’t quite as cosy as the Slytherin one. Too much light. Scarlet too offensive on the eye. Bothersome, really. Ron led him to the dorms without another word, his back always firmly turned. Draco didn’t quite mind: his confessions had left a bitter taste in his tongue, doomed to poison any further word.

It was ridiculous, really - by this point, Hermione and Ron knew more about how Draco felt than Harry himself.

‘It’s here,’ Ron said, stopping by a heavy wooden door. ‘Don’t…’ he waved a hand around, then snapped his gaze stubbornly to the floor. ‘Whatever, mate. Don’t be a twat, I guess.’ 

He moved to leave, but Draco caught him by the arm on some urgent impulse. 

'Are we alright? 

Ron stared at him for a long while. The smile he drew at least was tired, but thankfully genuine.

'Of course we're alright. He'd kill me if we weren't.'

He waved, a fleeting movement that died in his wrist, and scurried off the corridor in a brisk pace.

Draco stared at the wood, and thought perhaps that he shouldn’t enter at all. 

Thought the walls would soon turn scarlet and snap his neck. Get rid of the snake. 

The bully. 

Was that what he was? A dark root in Harry’s life? As sharp and cold as Ron saw him? He never quite felt like it - no, for years he’d strived to hide the softness inside him. Perhaps he’d buried it so deep that it’d decomposed. Harry deserved more than that. He deserved care unparalleled and unafraid. The simple love of someone who’s never had to hide it. Someone who’d never hurt him. Someone who deserved him. 

But dark roots don’t smother themselves. They fester. Draco could never turn back. No, he wasn’t that selfless - he’d cling tooth and nail until Harry cut him off himself. 

He went in. 

Pale sunlight filtered through, hitting off the polished pillars of the canopy beds. They weren’t made: the covers had been pulled down, showing white sheets over narrow mattresses and creased pillows. All were empty, except for one. 

‘It’s bloody late, Harry.’ 

There was some tossing in the bed. A blur of black hair flashed through, then an inch of pale skin from under the covers.

‘Draco?

And the name was uttered so soft, tone stale from sleep, so perfectly intimate and domestic, that all the tension in Draco melted. Ron’s words dissolved, all anger faded, and he was suddenly very small and very weak, and his head hurt and he loved Harry, and all he wanted was to crawl into that bed with him and never leave. 

‘How are you?’ 

Harry shimmied up until Draco could see his entire head, clumsily propped on his pillow, hair tousled and skin pink. He wasn’t wearing glasses. It was frighteningly endearing. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?’ 

‘After. I asked first.’ 

Harry snorted. ‘Well, I’m bloody terrible. You?’ 

‘Bloody terrible as well,’ Draco said, his smile tender as he regarded Harry from the foot of the bed. He’d never seen him quite as small before - not even in that infirmary bed, where the white had shrunk him to skin and bone. This was Harry in the space where he slept every night, where he woke every morning, where he tossed and turned after nightmares and slowed his breath after climaxing at his own hand. Harry at his purest. 

Draco could hardly believe he got to see it. 

And then Harry was asking him to do more than _see_. 

‘C’me here.’ 

‘I’m sorry?’ 

‘What, do we have to be married first or something?’ Harry smirked, already flattening himself against one side of the mattress. ‘Come here, you look about to fall over.’ 

Draco went, biting his lip to keep from saying something entirely too inappropriate and _serious_ about marriage. With a small, reverent exhale of breath, he slipped into bed besides Harry, pushing the warm covers over him. He settled on his back, all muscles tense, trying to take as little space as possible, just like a little kid promising to be still so their mother doesn’t shoo them away. Harry let him adjust with a quirked eyebrow that looked entirely too amused, then moved himself, first the gentlest pressure of his leg against Draco’s, then an arm around his middle, finally his cheek right over his heart. All fluid, silent, like they did it all the time.

No. Like they _would_ do it all the time - like a future for them was being written. 

‘Bloody hell, you’re cold,’ Harry groaned, though he only clung closer to him. 

‘I forgot my robes.’ 

‘But you still came,’ Harry hummed. ‘You could have killed yourself in the Grand Staircase.’ 

‘Well, I wanted to make sure you were still alive,’ Draco drawled, though his tone was too soft to be properly teasing. Harry seemed to notice - his lips pressed lightly over Draco’s sternum through his uniform shirt, a warm touch to his cold skin. 

‘How _did_ you get up here anyway?’ 

Draco sighed as he remembered his argument with Ron. All those cold, sharp words, the doubt it’d brought him, how wrong it had made him feel. Like he was poisoning Harry’s skin with his fingers. 

‘Ron let me in.’ 

‘Did he really? I’ll have to thank him for that,’ Harry mused, digging his chin into Draco’s chest to look up at him with a twinkle in his eye. ‘It was a very pleasant surprise.’ 

‘Was it?’ Draco smiled. When Harry nodded, he kissed him softly on the lips. ‘Harry?’

Harry hummed in question. Draco breathed in deep, scared, and asked,

‘Do you resent me? For how I used to be, I mean.’ 

A hand pressed slightly at Draco’s chest as Harry pushed himself up to regard him better. He looked serious now - had probably picked up on the pitifully frightened note in Draco’s tone. 

‘How you used to be?’ 

‘Yes. The prick that got turned into a ferret,’ Draco replied; and he said it bluntly, clipped, _factual_ , like it didn’t bother him, even though all the memories of how awful he’d been were now spinning in a whirlwind inside his skull, fueled by Ron’s words, and digging a hole of guilt inside him. 

To his surprise, however, Harry simply laid his head back on Draco’s chest with a sigh. 

‘D’you remember what you said, when I asked you about this scar?’ Harry traced a light finger over Draco’s middle, ‘Of course I resent you. It’s a bloody big scar.’ 

Draco nodded, dispirited, settling his hand softly on Harry’s back. What else had he expected? He’d pestered Harry for _years_. Harry could never have forgiven him - he didn’t deserve it. 

‘And is it worth apologizing for?’ 

‘No. It wouldn’t make any of us feel better. Just make up for it - don’t be a dick,’ Harry huffed, looking up at him with a little wicked smile. ‘What got you thinking about this, anyway?’ 

Draco managed a half shrug, his fingers running slow patterns up and down Harry’s back. 

‘This room. This place, all red and gold. I don’t belong here.’ 

‘You don’t. And I don’t belong in the ladies’ bathroom, but I can still make friends with them,’ Harry mused. ‘Look, Hermione and Neville helped you back to the dungeons last night. Ron let you in here, no matter how much shit he gave you for it. _I'm_ dating you, if you’ve forgotten. You’re not a Gryffindor. You’re one of us.’ 

And what could Draco say to that, what words could he string along as a reply, when he knew his voice would falter so pathetically? No, he’d save Harry from hearing that - Harry who was looking at him with eyes so fond, so sure, so _mesmerizing_ \- and Draco kissed him instead, soft, slow, with an urge that melted warm and tearful. Pressed their lips together until he’d regained some shred of control, then dropped his head on the pillow to bat away the pesky wetness in his eyes. 

‘I can’t believe Hermione and Neville saw me drunk,’ he murmured, to try and dispel the tension. It worked - Harry laughed, resuming his idle tracing across Draco’s chest. 

‘If it helps, you’re not the only one who drank too much.’

‘Oh, I can tell,’ Draco snorted. Harry’s skin was a whole new level of sickly pale, after all. ‘Perhaps we should stay clear of alcohol for a few nights.’ 

Harry hummed, a thoughtful little thing, but said nothing else. As silence descended upon them, Draco could feel sleep coax his eyelids closer together. Harry’s body, half draped over him, rhythmically shifting with each slow intake of breath, was the most pleasant weight. How wonderful would it be to fall asleep every night with the subtle graze of black hair under his chin? The warm press of lips on his sternum? Perhaps together they’d fend off each other’s nightmares. Lazy nights between sheets, sleeping with their limbs entangled. He figured he’d quite like that. 

‘They’d be boring nights,’ Harry murmured then, tone measured, and Draco heard what had been unspoken: restless nights. Tossing. Turning. Nightmares. 

‘I’m sure we’d find ways to keep you entertained,’ he said gently, pressing a soothing hand to his lower back. Harry arched gratefully into the touch. 

‘Oh yeah?’ 

Draco nodded, his smirk growing. 

'Your mouth can do much better things than drinking.’

'Oh, fuck off,' Harry snorted, drawing a laugh from Draco. 

He tried to sound at least somewhat lighthearted in his next suggestion:

‘Or we could just do this.’

Harry looked up at him again, brow furrowed, a little twitch to his lips like he was trying to suppress a smile.

‘This?’ 

‘Yes. It’s nice, isn’t it?’ 

He could feel Harry’s soft laughter vibrating against his chest before he pressed a small kiss to it.

‘It is. Though it’d be hard to keep sneaking into each other’s dorms.’ 

‘You’re always wandering around at night anyway,’ Draco ventured. ‘One would think you’d like the challenge of sneaking into the Slytherin area.’

‘Not a challenge,’ Harry drawled. ‘Broke into it in second year, remember?’ 

And how could Draco not, when every little confession, his or Harry’s, uttered during that wretched Veritaserum game was burnt into his memory? Oh, how little he’d known then, how skeptical he’d been, how sure he’d never get even a sliver of the intimacy he was allowed now. The thought made him hold onto Harry a little tighter, pulling him almost fully on top of him. 

‘Then it shouldn’t be a problem.’ 

‘No, but it’d hardly feel private,’ Harry smirked, and then he was raising his head properly to look at him with amusement in his eyes. ‘At least not as private as it’ll be in that flat in London.’

And he’d said it to tease, the twat, all lighthearted and wicked, like he genuinely didn’t know what those words would do, like he didn’t know Draco would melt at that. But Draco’s breath caught, so dreadfully obvious, so impossibly delirious, because Harry remembered - not just a drunken musing, nor a passing joke, not an idea regretted and discarded. It had lingered in his mind, maybe not a serious suggestion, nothing of the sort, but surely as something. A notion to be explored or teased or asked about - regardless, not to be forgotten. And wasn’t that so entirely hopeful? So ridiculously pink and sweet, conjuring all sorts of domestic dreams in Draco’s head? Wasn’t that perfect?’

Harry laid his head down once more, waking Draco from his thoughts.

'Yes. In that flat in London,' he echoed, and hoped to all heavens that his tone had sounded less serious than he felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, alright, I apologize for the brief angst with the argument between Ron and Draco, but I wanted Draco's past to be fully addressed so we could all get closure. 
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	18. Slytherins & Ghosts I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to astroperks, the official ghost of this fic~

The following Tuesday, Draco summoned the courage to approach Harry in school. 

Not Harry alone. Harry with his friends. 

He walked right up to them, in the Great Hall no less, by the bustling Gryffindor table, touched Harry’s arm and spoke:

‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ 

Like he expected, Ron and Hermione both settled on him pairs of awkward eyes, wavering between friendly and unsure. Little did it matter, though. Harry smiled, and Draco could focus on nothing else. 

‘I’ve hardly seen you all day,’ Harry said as Draco led him away with a hand on his elbow. 

‘Well, hello.’ 

‘Hey,’ Harry grinned, crooked, bloody adorable, and he tilted his head up to kiss him. A soft thing, and still the clatter from the tables - which was always so dreadfully loud, because no one had the smallest sense of table manners - fell completely from Draco’s ears. He heard the buzz of his own blood, and followed Harry’s lips when he pulled back, dazed, shocked, but Harry didn’t indulge him. He stayed out of reach, eyes twinkling, sinfully tempting, until the sounds from the Great Hall tuned up again. 

‘What was that for?’ Draco asked. 

Harry shrugged. ‘You said we should kiss in front of the school once, remember?’ 

‘Yes, but I hardly expected you to take me up on it,’ Draco replied in a disbelieving tone.

‘Well, I did,’ Harry smiled. He tipped his head towards the professors’ table on the other end of the Great Hall. ‘D’you think any of them saw it?’ 

Draco glanced at the elevated platform. He thought he could see, through the buzzing heads of dozens of students, McGonagall’s beady eyes trained on his. 

‘I think they might have,’ he smirked. ‘Let’s hope so, at least.’ 

‘What did you want to tell me, anyway?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘You dragged me away to tell me something, didn’t you?’ Harry frowned. 

‘Oh. Yes, well, I can’t bloody remember now, can I?’ Draco sighed, loosely encircling one of Harry’s wrists with his hand to pull him a bit closer. ‘You have distracting lips.’ 

‘I kissed you for a _second,_ ’ Harry rolled his eyes, but he was suppressing a smile. ‘I have Quidditch practice, think fast.’ 

Draco hummed. Hermione and Ron were still staring; many others too, Draco reckoned. He wasn’t much inclined to let go of Harry’s wrist, however. 

‘Do you have plans for Friday night?’ 

‘Of course,’ Harry huffed. It _had_ been a stupid question, really - Harry and his friends hadn’t spent a Friday night at Hogwarts since the year had started. 

‘Would you cancel them?’ 

That had Harry raise a quizzical eyebrow. Draco, emboldened, took hold of his other wrist - and the Great Hall could be damned, the Great Hall could all _look_ as Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy held hands like smitten fools - and explained: 

‘You haven’t properly met my friends.’ 

‘Oh,’ Harry said. His eyes widened, his smile fell. ‘I’ve _met_ them. They hate me.’

‘I hated you, and look how well that turned out,’ Draco mused, swiping a soothing thumb over his knuckles. 

‘Except you didn’t actually hate me. You just thought I was too handsome,’ Harry smirked. _‘They,’_ he glanced at the Slytherins table, ‘they really hated me.’ 

It wasn’t entirely true. The Slytherins, at first, had taken quite the placid attitude towards Harry. Hatred took commitment - there were much better things to do. No one liked the Boy Who Lived, the name, the symbol, but the actual boy was small and skittish and unremarkable. Draco had been the one to spur the Slytherins on, because he couldn’t hate Harry, but others could. They’d act as sorry surrogates - in the midst of them, _leading_ them, no one would doubt that Draco’s hatred was genuine. 

It had seemed like a good compromise at the time, at least. He’d thought his father would be proud. 

He’d been right. 

But he wouldn’t share that with Harry. No, there were certain subtleties of his past that were simply too pathetic to impose on someone else. He’d bear them himself, so they could haunt his dreams alone. 

‘No one has the patience to hate you anymore, Harry. It’s exhausting,’ he said instead, trying to dispel the concern in Harry’s eyes. ‘They’ll like you as much as your friends like me, I reckon.’

At that Harry huffed a laugh, though his brow was still furrowed. Pensive. Unsure. His eyes flittered around, only meeting Draco’s fleetingly. 

‘What if we have a row?’ 

‘Well, you’re not twelve, so I don’t expect that to happen,’ Draco drawled. When Harry didn’t lighten, he said, a bit more firmly, ‘Harry. My friends were Death Eaters. _I_ was a Death Eater. Is that alright?’ 

It made Harry’s gaze snap in place. Made his jaw set, and Draco could see each nerve being pushed primly into position, untangled and unwound. No uncertainties: nothing but the confident mane of a lion. 

‘It’s alright,’ he nodded, slow, meaningful - and Draco didn’t deserve him, did he? This boy he’d encouraged the Slytherin house to hate, who now forgave them so readily, who was all kindness and good. 

Draco could never deserve him, and he’d never let him go. 

So he kissed him, brief, sure, in a gratitude that was much too urgent and too disbelieving to be properly normal. Reverence, it was. Worship, yet selfish, claiming a God to himself. 

‘D’you know,’ Harry said through a little smile once they’d parted, ‘They might still hate me anyway.’ 

‘It hardly matters. I’m more worried you’ll hate _them_.’ 

‘I like Pansy,’ Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t know about Zabini, though. He always looks like he’s plotting.’ 

‘He is,’ Draco snorted. ‘You’re welcome to hate him. I do as well.’ 

Harry huffed a laugh. Over his shoulder, Draco could see Hermione’s and Ron’s spinning backs, their pace brisk as they exited the Great Hall - tired of waiting, Draco assumed; through the corner of his eye, still subtle and unsure, McGonagall’s eyes still seemed fixed on them; and closer, right where Draco could see them, a handful of students sitting at the tables had given up their lunch to gape at them instead. So many pairs of eyes deeming them true and solid - it really was for the best, since Draco, when he was the only one seeing, still had a hard time believing it. 

‘Where are we going, anyway?’ 

Harry’s question stirred him out of his musings. Draco hummed, amused, his lips tweaking up. 

‘Meet us in the dungeons, at the end of the stairs that lead to the Viaduct Entrance. Midnight on the dot. And wear something formal.’ 

‘Formal?’ Harry asked, an eyebrow cocked. Draco simply nodded, disinclined to sate his curiosity. He’d find out soon enough, in any sense - and until then, his eyes would sparkle with that hint of impatience that looked so lovely on him. 

‘Go to practice, Harry.’ 

‘Tell me first.’ 

‘You know I won’t.’ 

‘Twat,’ Harry huffed, but he still kissed him goodbye as he left, and Draco still watched him go with the fondest, most hopelessly lovesick look the Great Hall had ever seen. 

Time went by slurred and sticky until Friday. Draco refused to disclose anything about their plans, and Harry soon gave up asking. Meanwhile, Draco made sure the 8th year Slytherins would be on their best behaviour - or a semblance of it, or an _attempt_ at it, at least. Pansy had spoken to Harry before, Crabbe and Goyle would likely be more awkward than anything else, and Pike seldom talked to his friends, let alone his friends’ partners. It was people like Blaise and Tracey that worried him - people with quick mouths and a vested interest in any romance that didn’t involve them. Those were frightening. Those had Draco convinced he wouldn’t survive the night. 

Because they’d make _jokes_. Indifferent to Harry and punishing Draco for not having told them sooner, they’d be ruthless and sharp and just on the edge of sardonic, and they’d pester the two of them, and Draco could bear the jokes that accosted him but he didn’t quite know what he’d do if Harry reacted badly. If he had a poor time, if he did get in a row, if he looked at them all together in the cold darkness of the dungeons and finally saw Draco as the irremediable Slytherin he was, and pictured him in the Death Eater robes he’d worn, and ran back into the simplistic comfort of the Gryffindor dorms never to speak to him again. 

No. He didn’t quite know what he’d do then. 

Regardless, he didn’t change his mind. Five minutes before midnight on Friday, he was planted at the bottom of the spiraling stairs, clad in one of his best suits, posture rigid, hands clasped behind his back, Pansy beside him and Blaise and Rowena whispering a few steps back. 

‘How’s my hair?’ 

‘It’s lovely, Pansy,’ answered Rowena in her usual sing-song. 

‘I wasn’t asking you, dear, you’d never say anything else.’ 

‘Nevermind Pansy,’ said Blaise, resting a reassuring hand on the low of Rowena’s back. He too wore a suit, tailored so precisely that the fabric hung like liquid from his skin. The burnt orange of his breast square matched Rowena’s long dress. ‘Nerves make her rude.’ 

‘You talk so much, Blaise,’ Pansy sighed. 'Why is it that you never say anything worthwhile? Draco, my hair.’ 

Draco turned away from the stairs, which he’d been watching with a frown, to properly take in Pansy. She’d curled her hair, which was unusual; curled it in small, tight locks, which was even stranger. 

‘What type of answer do you want?’

‘The least offensive version of honest.’ 

‘Whimsical.’ 

Pansy’s smile grew wide and feline:

‘Wonderful.’

‘When _is_ it that your dates get here?’ urged Blaise. It was the third time he repeated the question - his tone grew more and more petulant by the second. 

‘Perhaps if you were silent time would move faster,’ said Draco. 

‘You’re both in wretched moods, aren’t you?’ Blaise mused, Rowena suppressing a little smile besides him. ‘I was under the impression this would be _fun_.’ 

‘Then go on ahead and meet the others,’ Pansy shrugged. ‘I’m sure Draco and I will survive without you droning around us.’ 

‘And miss our dear Draco drooling over-’ 

‘Me, I assume?’ 

Harry stood at the top of the stairs. He was fit in a black suit, white shirt pressed and immaculate, collar straight, jacket sleeves snug around his arms, tie tightly knotted at the base of his neck. Formal, as Draco had asked - and he’d done it perfectly, he _looked_ perfect, fucking delectable in the elegant outfit, in the subtle way he fidgeted and rolled his shoulders as if oppressed by the fabric, just promising he’d keen so prettily if Draco laid him out and undressed him, so bloody precious in the way that, despite it all, his hair remained an irreparable mess of wild strands, like a blur of crows’ wings when they lifted flight. Beautiful, and Draco knew at once that night would be a terrible mistake, for he’d always prided himself in his dignity and now, with Harry there, what would his friends see but him soft and mooning and pitiful in his love? 

Behind Harry, coming down the steps, was Luna. 

‘Are they-’ she trailed off, laying a bejeweled hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘Hi, everyone. Hi, Pansy. I love your hair.’ 

And Draco swung his head to stare at Pansy, and in her eyes - for but a millisecond - was the most telltale warmth of fondness. 

‘Thank you. I had a sense you’d like it.’ 

It was strange - it was unbelievable - and there was a stunned silence as Pansy and Luna gazed at each other and everyone else, in turn, stared at them. Then, with an inaudible click, movement and thoughts and _words_ returned to the group, and Draco turned to Harry with an incredulous ‘Did you know about this?’, while Blaise, from behind him and in a much lower tone, pointedly intended to Rowena, said, ‘Figures it’d be the Ravenclaw.’ 

Harry shrugged. ‘We found each other in the halls. She told me.’ 

‘Why didn’t _you_ tell me?’ Draco urged, his gaze snapping back to Pansy. She didn’t even have the decency to look contrite - simply smiled, eyes twinkling under a dark purple shimmer. 

‘Harry. Luna,’ it was Blaise’s voice, and Draco was instantly tense. But Blaise was pure grace in his signature condescending politeness. ‘Forgive Draco and Pansy, they’re awful slow tonight. This is the part where they’d hold out their hands and lead you down.’ 

‘Sod off, Blaise,’ Draco hissed. Yes, this truly had been a wretched idea. 

But Harry and Luna only laughed and came down themselves to join them in the dungeon hall. Harry stepped towards him, shifting his weight between his feet, a crooked, _nervous_ smile on his lips, and Draco wasted no time in looping an arm around his waist and kissing his cheek warmly. He primly ignored Blaise’s smirk.

‘I wore red,’ Luna said - and she truly had committed to the colour, crimson in her frilly dress, in the laces in her hair, in the stark pigment shaping her lips. ‘Is red alright?’ 

‘It’s lovely,’ was Rowena’s prompt reply.

‘What _are_ we doing anyway?’ Harry asked. He wasn’t even looking at Draco when he spoke - he’d given up on the hope that Draco would tell him. 

‘Oh, is this a surprise, then?’ Blaise sighed. ‘I suppose we should just show you, shouldn’t we? Come along,’ he gestured with an idle hand, then turned the corner with Rowena. The others followed, orbiting to their little pairs: Luna and Pansy entwined their fingers with a fluidity that hinted at _habit_ \- and wasn’t that terribly disconcerting? - while Harry tucked himself further into the curve of Draco’s side. In those cold, bare stone corridors they were the strangest picture of styled hairs, clashing colours and sweeping fabrics. 

‘Hello,’ Draco murmured, an intimate greeting uttered with his lips pressed to Harry’s hair. 

‘Hey,’ Harry said, tone slurred with amusement. His eyes were curious when he looked up at him. ‘I’ve been waiting for days to find out what this is.’ 

‘I know,’ Draco hummed. ‘It’d be a shame if I ruined it now by telling you, wouldn’t it?’ 

‘Fuck you,’ Harry snorted. ‘Luna! Luna, d’you know what this is all about?’ 

Both Luna and Pansy looked over their shoulders at them. Luna’s blood red lips split into a radiant smile. 

‘Spring.’ 

‘Spring?’ Harry looked back at him with a frown. Draco had the most ridiculous, childish urge to kiss his scrunched nose. ‘Why is everyone being so bloody cryptical?’

‘Would you just be patient? You’ve been doing so good.’ 

Blaise and Rowena, who were leading, winded down the corridors in an infuriatingly slow pace, the type of languorous, sticky thing from poetic love, where one thinks they’ve the time to smell flowers and doze off in peaceful fields. They took a short flight of stairs, during which Draco refused to meet Harry’s quizzical eyes, and at last stopped in front of a heavy wooden door with a pair of lazily triumphant smiles. 

‘This is still the dungeons,’ Harry said. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘This is… the ghosts’ party hall.’ 

Draco finally met his gaze, delighting in the blooming excitement in it.

‘Yes.’ 

‘Ready, chaps?’ Blaise said, a hand on the rusty iron doorknob. 

‘Don’t be dramatic,’ Pansy huffed. ‘We’ll have enough of that inside.’ 

‘Such terrible, terrible moods,’ Blaise sighed, long and pronounced, and then he was opening the door, revealing the spectral bustling inside. 

It was a mess of ghostly white shifting between the black velvet draperies that lined the tall walls. The glossy black candles on the chandelier bathed the dungeon in gentle light, dim like a dream, casting chilly shadows by the corners. They crossed the threshold - their presence rippled through the air, and dozens of ghostly eyes settled on them. Placid curiosity, a second of it, and then the chatting resumed, thick and unintelligible, the type of incomprehensible cacophony that brings about the feeling that a great party is going on, and that one is incredibly late for it, and that one now has no hopes of fitting in. 

Goyle was the first to spot them. He sauntered towards them in a striped suit, bow tie digging into his broad neck, took one good look at Harry and asked:

‘Will this be weird, d’you reckon?’ 

Harry, surprised, huffed a laugh. ‘Yes. For a while.’ 

‘Yes,’ Goyle repeated, waving one hand around. ‘Yes, well- sorry about… everything. Yes.’ 

With that, and after one pointed look at Draco that seemed perhaps not exactly happy but _proud_ , he spun around and left right through the ghostly, lank figure of a nun. 

‘Spectacular display,’ drawled Blaise. ‘I’m sorry, Harry, but Draco did bully us into being nice to you. I suppose it simply doesn’t agree with poor Goyle.’ 

‘Nothing agrees with Goyle,’ Pansy said, though her bite was half-hearted. ‘Luna and I are going to look for the Headless Hunt. Do holler if you see them,’ she waved, Luna did as well, they walked off in a twirl of purple and red. Blaise and Rowena were keen to find Tracey, so they too wandered away with the vague promise of returning with her. Harry and Draco were alone.

Harry stepped in front of Draco. His slight fidgeting had ebbed; instead, his figure had filled with a sort of humoured confidence. It rather suited him. Then again, what didn’t? 

‘You bullied them into being nice to me?’ he asked, the beginnings of a smile twitching in his lips. Truly, Draco should have locked Blaise in the common room: he spoke too much, and only of what he wasn’t supposed to. 

‘I advised them.’

‘How?’

‘Empathically,’ Draco hummed. ‘With threats.’

Harry laughed. A ghost woman hovered past them in a frenzy, hips swaying in pale static as she neared her friend. He followed her with his gaze, then let it scan the entire hall, the strange formality of it, the decrepit decorations and moth-eaten curtains. When he looked back at Draco, he seemed thoughtful. 

‘D’you know I’ve been here before? For Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday party.’

‘Of course you have,’ Draco sighed. Really, he should never have presumed he’d be introducing Harry to something new. ‘You and your friends have wormed yourselves into every bloody crevice in this school.’

Harry snorted. ‘You could say that. But I haven’t been here in years. I didn’t even know they hosted other parties here. And this… at the Deathday party, the banquet tables were in the center. Now, they’re all pushed close to the walls. And our clothes… this is a dance, isn’t it?’ 

And those words, the thrilled tone in it, the little twinkle of wonder in Harry’s eyes, lifted Draco’s spirits - because perhaps Harry had been there once before, perhaps it hadn’t been a complete surprise, perhaps Draco hadn’t quite impressed him by showing him this strange hall like he’d childishly hoped, but Harry didn’t exactly seem disappointed. Oh, Draco had worried that Harry would return to his dorm that night and regret not having gone to Hogsmeade with his friends, that he’d leave disillusioned with Draco’s life, disillusioned with Draco himself, but he rather seemed _excited_ about it. 

So Draco nodded, keeping a smirk at bay when he innocently asked, ‘Do you know what happens today, Harry?’

Harry cocked an eyebrow. ‘What?’

‘It’s the Spring equinox,’ Draco said - and now, at the way Harry’s eyes widened, he let his smile bloom wide and proud. ‘The ghosts have been celebrating it with a ball every year. We found out in fourth year, and have been in attendance since.’ 

‘Are you serious?’ Harry said. Draco was very privately pleased with how _impressed_ Harry looked. ‘Always thought you guys were sticklers.’ 

‘We were Death Eaters, Harry,’ Draco snorted. ‘Compared to that, sneaking out our dorms didn’t really feel like overstepping.’ 

‘Draco! Draco, Merlin, you’re late.’ 

Tracey’s gravelly voice cracked with how loud she projected it. Out the corner of his eye, Draco could see her approach with Blaise and Rowena. 

‘Do we like her?’ Harry murmured. 

‘Depends on the day, really.’ 

‘What does?’ 

‘Nothing, Tracey,’ Draco answered in an appeasing tone. Tracey, Blaise and Rowena had reached them now, identically dangerous smiles flashing shiny canines, heads tilted, a trio of sharks sniffing for blood. Looking to make it pour. Romance did always bleed so prettily. ‘I’m surprised you came back. I was sure you two would be off in a corner somewhere attached by the mouth.’ 

‘Don’t be absurd,' Blaise huffed. ‘The corners here are nasty.’ 

‘Besides,’ Rowena added, looking at Blaise with a sly little smile. ‘We haven’t even danced yet.’

‘We haven’t, have we?’ Tracey hummed. Her eyes locked on Harry then, the darkest little slits. ‘Do you like dancing, Harry?’ 

Harry shifted besides Draco. His smile, however, was prim charm.

‘Yes, I do.’ 

Draco didn’t actually know if that was true. He’d watched, in fourth year - spent the entirety of the Yule Ball ogling Harry while Pansy’s hand dangled from his shoulder, cataloguing his steps, his laughs, the hesitant way in which he’d held onto Parvati’s waist. He’d noticed the shy awkwardness of it: the delicate movements confined Harry, he urged to move wider, surer, he ended up missing steps and grinding teeth. Because he was young - and mostly because he was in love -, Draco had been terribly self-involved, and assumed Harry simply needed a better dance partner. Someone who’d lead until Harry got the hang of it, someone who’d hold him tight lest he go astray, someone who’d perhaps tease, yes, but only to distract themselves from how _beautiful_ Harry had looked. These wonderings were the only memory Draco had of Harry dancing - they didn’t paint it in good light, and Draco began to fear Harry wouldn’t like to dance. 

Not that it was a problem. If Harry didn’t want to dance, they wouldn’t dance. Draco would stand in a corner with him for the remainder of the night. He’d hardly count himself misfortuned. 

‘Is this your first date, then?’ Tracey went on. Harry’s eyes widened in surprise, and Tracey smiled sharply. ‘Draco really won’t tell us anything, you see? I hoped you might be the one to ask.’ 

Draco rolled his eyes. ‘Will you not let it go?’ 

‘If you hadn’t hidden it, we wouldn’t be as curious,’ Blaise said, all faux reason, a small smirk betraying his amusement.

Harry nudged him in the arm. ' _Is_ this our first date?' 

Draco hummed. He hadn't given it much thought. 

'Does the Alihotsy count?' 

'I don't think so,' Harry said. 'It wasn't that romantic.' 

'Well, we did fuck on the table.' 

Harry's cheeks went a little pink, his eyes a little dark, and he huffed a laugh. 'As I said, not romantic,' he looked back at Tracey with a crooked smile. 'I suppose it is our first date.' 

'Is it really?' Blaise mused. 'Why, a ghost ball as a first date. You really are looking to impress, aren’t you, Draco? 

He’d obviously said it as a partial jab, the littlest bit vindictive, because how could he not? For years Draco had lounged in the common room or laid on his bed with Blaise, and they’d trashed Harry, hated the perfect Gryffindor boy together, made rude jokes and pathetic plans, and now Draco was _dating_ him, looking at him like he’d hung the moon, no lesser in the intensity of feeling but so _different_ \- but not different at all, not really, not in the slightest, he’d been so in love, he’d insulted Harry in the most wistful tones and countlessly blurred plotting with daydreaming, it’d all been the _same_. But Blaise hadn’t noticed it, hadn’t believed it perhaps, and it bothered him, therefore he tried to bother Draco in turn. 

And Draco _could_ be bothered, if he let himself. Could feel the simmering of shame at Blaise’s words. Mainly, though, prominent in the part of him that cared little for dignity and lived on Harry’s smiles, there was only blinding love and simple pride. 

So he didn’t tense, neither did he waste time with some lame pretense of nonchalance. Instead, he looked down at Harry, eyes soft with fondness, and said:

‘I am. Did it work?’

Harry, on his part, met his gaze with a warm intensity, like they were alone, like three of Draco’s friends - past friends, he’d hardly talk to them after this - weren’t watching in hopes of making them squirm. 

‘Yes.’ 

Tracey’s loud sigh broke the moment.

‘You’re absolutely no fun.’ 

Blaise seconded her, looking terribly disappointed.

‘Like kicking a dog, making fun of you two. You’re too in love.’ 

At that, Draco froze. Muscles rigid, and it had to be quite noticeable, for Harry’s side was pressed against his. Blaise’s jaw set almost imperceptibly, a little quirk Draco had memorized after years of knowing him, that subtle, rare thing that meant he knew he’d committed some mistake. And Draco daredn’t look at Harry, and he was opening his mouth to let out some sorry, useless quip to change the subject - to bury the word ‘love’ with some, any, whatever words he could think of, when he was saved by another voice, loud and wavering, spoken right between his ear and Harry’s. 

‘What is this, then?’ said Nearly Headless Nick. ‘What is this? Harry, you’re here with them? I didn’t know you were friends!’ the ghost twirled to the center of them, hovering just above the ground, his head bobbing perilously. ‘Marvelous to have you, regardless! I do apologize I never told you, but the Equinox Ball is quite the private thing between us… undead. Already strange enough to have these here every year,’ he tapped Draco’s shoulder cheerfully, his hand swiping right through the skin and disappearing inside him. It felt dreadfully cold, but Draco wouldn’t complain - the distraction had been welcome. 

‘Oh, yes,’ Harry’s small laugh was a surprised little thing. ‘It’s a recent friendship, I guess. We’re actually… heh....’ he waved a hand around, looking at Draco unsurely. 

‘They’re fruits, as they were called in your time,’ Blaise intervened. Draco looked at him sharply: the three of them, Blaise, Rowena and Tracey, looked terribly pleased. It seemed that they’d at last drawn blood. 

‘Fruits?’ Nearly Headless Nick asked, his voice high-pitched in confusion. Then, with one very audible click in his mind, his eyes widened and his head slid right off his neck, dangling by sinew. _‘Oh,’_ he exclaimed as he righted himself by his hair. _‘Those._ Yes,’ he tried a disconcerted smile, then turned pensive, then looked as though he’d figured out a difficult puzzle. ‘You did chase each other a lot when you were young, didn’t you? Always spying on each other… yes, makes sense, really. It’s what we did in my time, did you know? Chase each other, _play_ … Yes, yes,’ his tone became distant while he reminisced, before he looked back at the two of them with a glistening smile. ‘Wonderful for you two, if a bit of an odd match. Matters of romance, though… five centuries I’ve been here, still haven’t figured it out,’ he turned with a flourish, hovering a bit over their heads. ‘In any sense, I was meant to tell you the dance is about to begin, if you’d like to take your places.’ 

With that, he fluttered off to the center of the hall, where the other ghosts were gathering, leaving Draco feeling quite mortified, Harry biting his lip in a lame attempt not to laugh, and the three sharks looking obscenely amused. 

‘ _That_ was fun,’ Tracey remarked. Rowena’s virtuous laugh escaped from the cup of her delicate hand. 

_‘Fruits?’_ Harry said, his tone a mix of shocked and humoured.

‘Draco is,’ Blaise shrugged. ‘I don’t quite know about you. You were with that Weasley girl, weren’t you?’ 

‘Places,’ Draco said suddenly, grabbing Harry’s arm - because they would not talk of Ginny bloody Weasley and all she was that Draco wasn’t on their first proper date, nor would they spend any more time around those nosy, wide-mouthed twats. ‘Let’s go, Harry, before the music starts.’

He walked away briskly, coaxing Harry with a steady tug on his arm. At the center of the hall, amidst the spectral figures, were Pansy and Luna already. 

‘Did I leave you with Blaise for too long?’ Pansy asked.

‘Yes.’ 

‘I’m terribly sorry.’ 

Harry yanked his sleeve then, stealing his attention.

‘Did we just run away from your friends?’ he said, an eyebrow cocked, unfairly amused. 

Draco hummed, smoothing his hands down Harry’s sides and pretending he wasn’t incredibly embarrassed. 

‘We didn’t. We ran away from unfortunate acquaintances. And your meddling House Ghost.’ 

‘He was hardly meddling. We _did_ chase each other around a lot,’ Harry mused. 

Nearly Headless Nick couldn’t know, however, the extent of it. For all his pretenses of omnipresence, his tendencies to float right through halls and spy on everyone, he could never know how often Draco had spied on Harry and his friends. Harry couldn’t know either. He could joke, but he couldn’t picture the hours wasted not batting an eye, watching with an aching heart, twisting fake hatred in his face until it hurt. He couldn’t picture the suffering, nor the tearful joy of being here now, holding him close, open and honest and _committed_ after years of wishing. 

‘I still chase you,’ Draco murmured, tone bare with the lingering hurt of his past self.

‘Do you?’ Harry asked, just as hushed, meeting his gaze. 

‘Well, you never stay bloody still.’ 

Harry laughed at that, though it was a soft sound. ‘I would, if you asked me,’ he said. He turned serious then, the subtlest change, a tweak in his jaw. ‘Where do you want me to be?’ 

What could Draco even answer to that? What could he say now, as he looked into Harry’s expectant eyes, that wasn’t uncomfortably eternal? What could he ask for now but for a promise? For a future? Be in my life, be in my bed, be at my side until the end - be wherever I am, never leave, never make me endure the loss of you. Honest answers, irrevocable words. And though Draco looked, though he tried with every nerve in his being, though he scanned every atom of Harry’s expression for a _clue_ , he couldn’t discern what he wanted to hear. What he should say. 

There was a slight rumbling to their left - a strange thing without preamble, enough to break the moment, to make them turn and see, through the translucent dance pairs that were already swaying together, the ghost orchestra set up a little way off, purring with the low notes of two ethereal cellos. A violin shrieked, a bone white piano began to play, and suddenly the music began loud and fluid in an eerie symphony. The ghosts danced with practised ease, impossibly light on their incorporeal feet; Pansy and Luna swept by them in a rustling of fabric; Draco led a hand to Harry’s hip by instinct, saw flashes of Harry’s hand around _Parvati's_ hip and gripped a little tighter, inched a little closer. Harry, on his part, was looking around with wild eyes, a hand unsure on Draco’s upper arm. 

‘I’m a terrible dancer.’ 

And with that all past tension was very simply dispeled, and Draco forgot the future at once to focus on the present.

‘You’re a prodigy at Quidditch,’ he snorted. ‘This can’t possibly be that difficult. Give me your hand.’ 

Harry obliged, though somewhat hesitantly. Draco swiftly brought them into the right position, shaping Harry’s body to mold his, chin tilted up, back primly straight, and then he led them away, small steps amidst the swirls of ghosts and Slytherins around them. 

‘You know, looking at your feet won’t stop you from tripping.’ 

‘Sod off,’ Harry laughed, a breathless sound as Draco guided them through the dancefloor. For all of Harry’s insecurities, he had quite the delicacy in his stance. Beautiful, a mesmerizing paradox of meek and confident. Draco reckoned they made quite the perfect pair - in dancing as well as everything else.

‘Is it quite as horrible as you thought it would be?’ 

Harry rolled his eyes. He was clasping Draco’s shoulder more securely now, though his steps were still stunted, slow, coaxed by Draco. He looked annoyed about the whole thing more than anything else - it was bloody endearing, and Draco was holding in the urge to smile like a fool. Perhaps it had been a few years too late, but he’d gotten his ballroom dance after all.

‘Not horrible, no. You’re a good dancer.’ 

Draco did preen at that - how could he not? 

‘It’s one of the brightsides of the Malfoy genes.’ 

Harry smirked. ‘The other is the hair.’ 

‘Oh, you like the hair, do you?’ Draco murmured, leading them smoothly through two twirling pairs. It was incredibly easy to dance when there was no fear of clashing with other people - they walked right through the dozens of ghosts, flickered in white static, only worrying to stay clear of the other flesh and bone figures. 

It made it feel like the dancefloor was just for them. Like they were alone in the dark hall, swaying to the music. 

‘I love it,’ Harry hummed, eyes twinkling, and he slid his hand up from Draco’s shoulder to tug softly at the silver strands. Draco had to contain a shiver - how easy would it be to answer with ‘And I love you’? How easy, how fluid, and perhaps Harry wouldn’t even find it strange, for in that moment, with the symphony and the spectral light and their bodies so close, the words very simply fit. It was all love - who could blame Draco for acknowledging it? 

He didn’t, in any sense. At least, he didn’t in explicit words. In brave words. Instead, he inched a little closer, resting his forehead against Harry’s, and murmured in masked levity:

‘Good, because you’re the only one allowed to fuck it up.’

Harry smiled - not an amused smile, something serious in its happiness, in the brightness of his eyes - and kept his hand warm and sure on Draco’s nape to pull him even closer, their lips grazing together. 

‘And you’re the only one allowed to try and fix mine,’ he whispered, soft words lost in Draco’s mouth, welling in his heart. That, more than anything else, as they swept across the hall in each other’s arms, felt like a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	19. Slytherins & Ghosts II

The symphonies blurred together without pause, long crescendos and the thrumming of strings in their ears lulling them into a wordless rhythm. It was Harry who, after a while, broke the strange spell with a mild complaint of his feet hurting. They walked out to the edge of the dance floor, their fingers still entwined. Luna followed them out. 

‘Harry! Harry,’ she called. ‘Here, could you hold my handbag, please? It keeps sliding off,’ she drew an apologetic smile, a little thing too thrilled to be properly humble, handed Harry the small bag and skittered off back to the mess of ghosts with a spring in her step, a rustling of red to the rhythm of the music. 

‘Did you really have no suspicion those two were a thing?’ Harry asked, looking at the little red bag in his hands. 

‘Absolutely none,’ Draco sighed. ‘Pansy did hint that she fancied someone, but she wouldn’t tell me who it was. They’re a strange couple, aren’t they?’ 

Harry snorted. ‘I don’t think we’re allowed to judge others. Just look at us.’

‘Fair enough,’ Draco smirked. He looked back at Luna and Pansy on the dancefloor. Luna was twirling under Pansy’s arm, platinum hair whipping the air, bright red lips split into an excited smile. Did Harry ever look that happy when he was with him? Did his own lips stretch so wide, like he could not control them, like his joy bypassed his mind so he couldn’t hope to hide it? 

Maybe they did, and Draco didn’t notice - Harry’s lips, for all their unnatural pinkness, like he bit and chewed them at all times, like blood was bubbling just under the skin, were nowhere close to the neon red of Luna’s lipstick. Yes, if Harry’s lips were that red, then his smiles would all shine brighter, always indiscreet, just like with the phoenix glitter, which had made his eyes jump out so impossibly vulnerable, and Draco could catalog them all in his mind, commit them to memory, strive to make them so frequent that his face hurt.

‘Harry?’ 

‘Hm?’

‘Would you hand me Luna’s bag?’ 

Harry raised an eyebrow, His fingers clutched the little thing against his chest, instinctively protective. Draco couldn’t much blame him - it was a bloody strange thing to ask. 

‘Why the fuck would you want her bag?’ 

Draco hummed. ‘She ought to keep her lipstick there.’ 

‘Alright,’ Harry slurred the word, looking at Draco like he was some strange, incomprehensible creature. ‘And why the fuck do you want Luna’s lipstick?’ 

The symphony halted to an end, the ghosts’ murmurings audible now over the hushed tuning of a few instruments. It made Draco’s words seem too loud when he answered:

‘You’d look good in it.’ 

Harry’s eyes went very round. The music began again - with it, he laughed. 

‘You’re mad.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘It’s Luna’s lipstick!’ 

Draco shrugged, looking at where Harry’s fingers had somewhat relaxed around the small red bag.

‘You’d still look good in it.’ 

‘Draco.’ 

_‘Harry.’_

And Harry looked _unsure_ , verging on the side of him that loved the thrill of a dare, the unpredictability of it. Oh, and he had to say yes, he had to, for Draco would never be able to shake off the picture of him with red stained lips regardless, and it’d be much better for his day to day focus if he could actually _see_ it instead of daydreaming all the time. Fantasies always required way too long to get right. 

‘You do realize,’ Harry started, tone measured. He seemed to be fighting off a smile. ‘That you wouldn’t be able to kiss me properly with this?’ 

Draco simply smirked.

‘Not on the lips, no.’ 

Harry’s gaze heated at that. A relief, really, for Draco himself felt a stirring heat from his words. What pretty marks he could leave on Harry’s body to match the glittery red of the lipstick. 

‘It’s still Luna’s lipstick.’

‘She won’t mind.’ 

‘You mean you don’t care if she minds or not.' 

‘No, I mean she’s too focused on _Pansy's_ lips to notice yours,’ Draco retorted. He stepped closer to him, putting his own hand on the bag. ‘Let me put it on you. Please.’

Harry’s eyes were a billowy black. Slowly, he withdrew his hands from the bag, letting Draco have it. 

‘Here?’ he whispered, not sounding as much hesitant as _interested_. 

Draco flittered a quick look around. Everyone was still enthralled in the dancing. From past years’ experience, that wouldn’t change for quite some time. Carefully, he opened Luna’s bag and unearthed the little golden stick, popping the lid off to roll the smooth red bar up. He eyed Harry with a challenging eyebrow raised. 

‘I doubt anyone will notice. And even if they do, I’m sure Nearly Headless Nick has already told everyone that you’re a _fruit_ anyway.’ 

‘Fuck off,’ Harry snorted, his jaw set confidently. ‘Go on, then, Malfoy, do your worst.’ 

‘Oh, I will,’ Draco hummed, catching Harry’s chin to angle it up. ‘You’re going to look bloody _sinful_ when I’m done with you.’ 

Harry shuddered, though he tried his best to hide it. In his efforts to stay still, to ground himself at the first touch of the red pigment against his skin, he gripped Draco's elbow, fingers viciously squeezing the curve there, nails digging into the tailored suit, lips parting ever so slightly for him. Beautiful, fragile as he allowed Draco to tilt his head just so, to run an appraising thumb over the lovely arch of his bottom lip before pressing the compact colour beneath it. 

It looked so _vibrant_. A smidge of dark red so stark against pale skin; just like that night in the Shrieking Shack, when they'd kissed and Harry had gotten blood on his lip; or that first time Draco had gone to Hogsmeade with Pansy, so nervous at the mere prospect of seeing Harry, and crimson had dropped from his lips as he downed two shots of firewhiskey. Oh, and he felt drunk now as well, insides churning with each focused swipe of the lipstick, filling in Harry's lips to the rhythm of the symphony rumbling around them, layering red over red, colouring him every inch the Gryffindor he was.

It was difficult, in all truth. Worse, since Draco's mind kept drifting with the urge to push Harry - Harry, who was standing so obediently, hand still in the crook of his elbow, eyes steady and mouth parted for him - against one of the moth-eaten black curtains, covering his body with his, whispering in his ear just how fucking precious, how fucking irresistible he looked. He did finish, regardless, applying the scarlet just a little beyond the pink curves of Harry's lips to get smoother lines. When he finally inched away to look at his work, he felt hot all over, and Harry's lips looked obscenely plump. 

'So?' Harry asked, drawing a little smile like he was modeling the colour. 'How does it look?' 

Draco let out a ragged breath. 

'Bloody hell, Harry.' 

Harry's smile only widened - and the contrast of the lipstick with the white of his teeth would actually be the death of Draco. 

'I'll take that as a good sign.' 

Draco could only manage a nod as a reply, still awfully obsessed with the picture before him. He'd been right before: Harry was fucking _sinful_. Black hair, pale skin flushed rosy from the dancing, lips a deep scarlet - like the princess from that Muggle fairytale, but without the dress, no, with a fitting suit instead, black and lean and so suggestive of the lovely skin underneath, just begging Draco to peel it off, to fold it neatly beside Harry's bed, to spread him out over linen covers and suck and bite every inch of skin until it was as red as his lips. 

'You know, there are other people in the room.' 

Harry's words, as well as the little smirk that came with them, pulled Draco away from his thoughts. 

'Yes, I'm aware.'

'Well, you ought to be more subtle, then,' Harry said, a teasing darkness in his eyes. 'The way you look at me - it's very obvious you want to fuck me.' 

That, at least, finally forced his eyes away from Harry's lips. He smirked, 'I wouldn't say so. I _always_ want to fuck you, and I've managed to be quite discreet about it for years.' 

'Not discreet,' Harry scoffed. 'Only lucky enough that people thought you wanted to hit me instead of kiss me.' 

Draco snorted. 'I did want to hit you _sometimes_.'

'But mostly kiss me,' Harry hummed with a playful smile - and if only he _knew_ how often Draco had dreamt of kissing him, the millions of times he'd envisioned it and architected it with the hopefulness of a child, like he could wish it into existence. And perhaps he had _willed_ it into existence, perhaps the universe had taken pity on him, because surely no one had ever loved someone as much as Draco loved Harry - there was no possible way, it couldn't be, they'd _combust_ \- and so, if Draco loved the most, if he'd ached the most, couldn't it be that the cosmos had helped _him_? 

'Yes,' he said, a low, sickeningly tender word to summarize his thoughts; a kiss to Harry's forehead to go with it. 'Mostly kiss you.'

He tugged on Harry's hips, coaxing him closer, pressing their lower halves together, an intimate gesture contrasting with the magnitude of the dance behind them. It was ridiculous how good Harry looked in that moment, teasing lips tweaked into that little amused smile of his, and Draco found himself wanting to shield him from the rest of the room. To protect this sight, so perfect and vulnerable, and keep it bottled in his memory. 

The other part of him - a twisted, proud part - wanted to parade Harry around the room, their arms primly entwined, and show all those ghosts the most mesmerizing person they'd seen in their centuries of existence. 

'You really do look lovely, sweetheart,' he murmured. True to his promise, he kissed Harry just under his eye, then closer to his ear, then his temple, never near his lips.

Harry's hand creeped a bit higher, squeezing his shoulder. 

'Did all the eighth year Slytherins come to the dance?' 

'I think so, yes.' 

So,' Harry's eyes were twinkling. 'The dorm would be empty?' 

Draco's knees almost went weak that. Wasn't it simply the most dizzying thought, having Harry on his bed, _his_ bed, amidst the covers he slept under, his head propped on _his_ pillow as he writhed and moaned? 

'You'll kill me, Harry,' he said - almost a sigh, never a complaint - before looping an arm around his waist. 'Let's go.'

Harry gave him a sly smile, and they headed towards the exit. They didn't get very far - Blaise, the inconvenient pest he was, quickly intercepted them.

'Are you going already?' he asked. When he properly looked at Harry, his smile grew infinitely more amused. 'I dare say, the colour looks better on you than it does on Lovegood.' 

'Thanks,' Harry said, quick though genuine. His mind was clearly elsewhere. Draco's was as well: already tangling in his sheets. 

Blaise, because he _knew,_ because he festered off discomfort, drew a slow honey-sticky smirk. 

'Headed to the dorms, I presume?' 

'Blaise,' Draco sighed, his fingers flexing on Harry's hip. 'You've never been one to ask stupid questions.' 

'Nor are you one to leave without saying goodbye,' Blaise drawled, his eyes settling on Harry. 'Not until you came along, at least. That colour really does suit you.' 

'Goodnight, Blaise,' Draco huffed, curt, _rushed_ , trying to head towards the exit again.

'Oh, and Draco?'

Harry sighed, and Draco turned to pin Blaise with a heated stare.

'For Merlin's-'

'Your bed and your bed only, understood? I don't want to have to wash my sheets,' Blaise said. He stepped forward then, stretching a hand with an impatient flick of wrist. 'And hand me Lovegood's bag, or else she'll go looking for it. I doubt you want to be interrupted.' 

Draco had completely forgotten the blasted bag - it hung neglected in his spare hand, the one not tugging at Harry's hip. He gave it to Blaise. 

'Say goodnight to Rowena for me,' he said, feeling like a little friendliness was now due. 

Blaise simply rolled his eyes.

'I won't. She wouldn't care.'

The warmth was short-lived, then. Draco didn't much care, in all honesty; he was much more preoccupied with easing the tension growing in Harry's impatient body - or maybe winding it tighter and tighter until it broke. So he let Blaise's smirk be, let it hang all pleased on his face, and stepped away without another word. Let him feel like he'd won - Draco was very clearly leaving with the prize. 

'I don't think I like some of your friends,' Harry mused once they reached the deserted dungeon corridor. The ghostly symphony was but a faint murmuring in the back of their ears. 

'It's alright, I don't like some of your friends either,' Draco replied with a smirk. 'Did you like your date?'

Harry hummed, squeezing Draco's middle a little tighter. 'Great first date. A little short, though.'

'Your fault, really. You make it very difficult to be with you in public.' 

'The lipstick was your bloody idea.' 

'One I definitely don't regret,' Draco smiled as they neared the smooth wall that bore the Slytherin common entrance. 'Severus.' 

'Wh-' Harry trailed off when he saw the door appear on the grey stone. 'Is that the password?' 

Draco shrugged. He remembered when he'd suggested it - the silence which had settled. No one had had the heart to change it, even as weeks went past. A safety hazard, an unbearably sentimental one, and still it remained. 

'I thought it would be nice. Everyo-'

He didn't get to finish his sentence, no, because Harry was stumbling into the dark room, dragging him by the arm and pushing him right against the newly reformed wall behind them. Their lips met, rushed, forceful, Harry taking the reigns of it with endless silent demands, teeth that nipped and hands that twisted into Draco's suit jacket. 

'It _is_ nice,' Harry panted against his mouth, and Draco, whose mind had short-circuited as he tried to pull Harry as close as possible, took entirely too long to remember what they were talking about. When he did, he let out a surprised laugh.

'Merlin, if I'd known this is what happens when I'm nice, then I'd have been your best friend by second year.'

One of Harry's hands left his chest - a millisecond later a gentle fuzz of light was hovering above them, allowing Draco to see his little smile perfectly. Figures Harry could do wordless magic. Figures Harry could do wordless magic while looking like Sin incarnate.

'You're all red,' Harry chuckled, staring at Draco's lips. He brought a finger to his own, ghosting over the smeared lipstick. 'I think I fucked up your work.' 

'No, love,' Draco murmured, 'You made it better.' 

Harry's smile went utterly warm at that, and his fingers trailed down Draco's arms almost temptatively. 

'You really should take us to the dorm now.' 

'Don't you know where it is? You have been here, after all,' Draco drawled, all feigned lightheartedness, like he felt no urgency, no _hunger_ within him. He did cup Harry's arse with his hand though - it was very difficult, after all, to act unaffected when Harry was so _close_.

'Will you let it go? It was in second year,' Harry huffed, obviously impatient, and wasn't that such a lovely sight? 'Besides, it's not like I had time to go exploring.' 

'One day you'll tell me that whole story,' Draco sighed, though he couldn't quite mask his fondness, and took him by the hand. 'Come on, dear.'

Harry followed eagerly to the dorms. With a flick of his wand, Draco lit a few candles, scattered bulbs of yellow light on the dressers and bedside tables, and then turned back to Harry, who was scanning the room. 

'Which one's yours?' he asked. The soft curiosity in his tone tugged at Draco's heart. 

'The last one. I find that sleeping against a wall helps.' 

Harry's nod was brief, his smile rueful.

'I've heard that. Never worked for me.' 

Of course it didn't. How could it? How could any lame, sorry trick ease Harry's nightmares? Solve his insomnia, appease his running thoughts - no, nothing short of leaving the bed entirely could do that. Nothing except for cold air and laughter and liquor. 

'A Friday night without alcohol, though,' he mused, words carefully light as he stepped closer to Harry. 'I'm sure it's the first one you've had in a while. Is it too terrible?' 

Harry huffed a laugh.

'The secret ghost ball was more than enough as a distraction, really. Besides,' he closed the distance with a slow smile, arms looping around Draco's neck. 'You more than make up for it.' 

They kissed again, lazier this time, more tongue than teeth. The lipstick was powdery and left a lingering taste on Draco's own lips. He quite liked it, actually - a solid reminder, whenever they parted for breaths, that they'd been kissing a moment ago. Draco walked them to his bed with a very awkwardly open eye, right until Harry's legs hit the wooden frame.

'I just realized we've never been on a proper bed before.' 

'Lay down, Harry.' 

Harry didn't - he sat at the foot of it, legs dangling, and looked up at him with ill-hidden impatience. 

'Are you just going to stand there?' 

'I told you to lay down, love. I'm waiting for you to do it.' 

Harry huffed - not properly frustrated, no, too breathless for that, too shaky - and obliged, propped up a little on his elbows, eyes wild and dark as he waited for Draco to join him. Draco, however, had no hurry in doing so - how could he, when the sight before him was so delightful? When Harry was laying in _his_ bed with that suit, with that lipstick, all heated and wanton? Draco owed it to his past self to commit the scene to memory; just a moment to reminisce on all the fantasies he'd had, from pitifully innocent things like dozing off in each other's arms after a long day to filthy flashes of hot and tight that kept him hopelessly distracted during Transfiguration. He had to _look,_ dissect and see just how better it was from his dreams, how realer, firmer, brighter in colour and detail, so he could convince himself he was truly awake. 

'Draco' Harry called, his voice much smaller than it'd been before. 'Come here.' 

It almost broke his resolve, overwhelmed him with the blind urge to oblige, but he held himself off with one hand on one of the posts, hovering just over Harry. There was an order to things - an order dictated by thousands of ghosts he'd embodied throughout the years, who'd laid in that same bed and dreamt of that precise moment. 

'In a minute. Take your shirt off first.'

Harry lightly kicked one of Draco's legs with an impatient huff. 'You know, it's not because we're in your dorm that you get to be demanding.' 

'No,' Draco purred, 'I get to be demanding because you like it.'

'Not if you're so smug about it,' Harry shot back, but he was fighting a smile and his fingers were already trailing the hems of his jacket. He chucked it on the floor - unceremonious, neglectful, and Draco had always defended a great care for good clothes, and he couldn't be bothered in the slightest at that moment - before moving on to the buttons of his shirt. All glorious skin underneath, so muted against the dark green covers, lean muscle from Quidditch and running around for seven years straight. The shirt went on the floor as well, and Harry leaned back on his elbows again. 'Will you quit staring and _do_ something now?' 

And that pretty fire of anger and despair was so delightful that Draco considered keeping him there a bit longer, shuddering in the cold air as he waited to be touched, but then Harry - because he was heartless, soulless, because he wanted to _kill_ Draco - opened his legs just so, enough to fit Draco's body between them, and how could Draco resist that? 

'You're very impatient,' he said as he kneeled on the bed, hands on each side of Harry's shoulders so he could lower himself and properly feel the warmth of his chest. 'Should I take that as a compliment?' 

Harry rolled his eyes, though it was half-hearted and he was stretching his neck to try and inch closer to Draco. 'I could compliment you _much_ better than that.' 

'Is that so?' Draco hummed. 'I'm going to take that as a promise.' 

And then he was ducking to lick a hot stripe towards Harry's nipples, a hot tongue over the prickly skin, and Harry was dropping his head on the bed like the air had been kicked out of his lungs. 

'You've no idea,' Draco murmured against his sternum, 'How long I've waited to have the time to do this.' 

Because time had never been in their favour. They'd always been furtive, rushed, with an impending sense of urgency. And now there was a soft bed for Harry to writhe on, covers under Draco's knees while he hovered over him, and a room all to themselves with thick walls and a suitably locked door. So Draco took one of Harry's nipples into his mouth, the left one so he could hopefully feel his heartbeat kicking up, and sucked the little nub without mercy, persistent but lazy, set to unravel Harry like he'd never had the chance to do before, slow and gradual and with a level of care bordering on _mean_. 

Harry let out a moan, rough and broken, fingers twisting in Draco's hair. It reminded Draco of their conversation during the dance, cowardly masked with talk of their hairs, a promise there regardless: Harry was the only one allowed to break his composure, Draco was the only one allowed to take care of him. The memory ran a streak of want through Draco, and he brought his hand up to rub Harry's right nipple between the soft pads of his fingers just to hear him moan again, to feel those fingers tug at his hair. 

'That's- Draco, fuck,' Harry breathed, grinding up against Draco's chest. Draco pressed him against the mattress, trapping him where he could hardly squirm. It wouldn't do anyone good to have Harry come so soon, after all. Harry twisted his hair to the right, trying to move his head - his _mouth_ \- towards his right nipple. 'Other one, c'mon.' 

He might have gotten it, if only he'd said 'please'. 

As it was, Draco simply hummed around the abused nipple, catching it very gently between his teeth and flicking it with his tongue. The noise Harry made was wrecked, his hips trying to move under Draco's weight. Really, it ought to be quite frustrating - at least Draco got to grind his hard dick against the mattress. Draco didn't let up, however; the point of this, after all, was to make Harry _desperate_. Open and vulnerable and trembling in nothing but that obscenely red lipstick, trusting Draco to take care of him - because he did, didn't he? He'd said he was the only one who could fix his hair, and it had spoken so much of permanence, of _eternity_ \- and it had to be, it had to, for no one else should be able to see Harry like this. No one would _appreciate_ it enough. 

'Draco,' Harry hissed, and now he was just pulling at Draco's hair, the vicious twat, trying to get his attention. 

Draco relented, easing the suction with one last kiss before pulling away to admire his work. The bud was shiny with saliva, swollen and red, so sensitive it seemed to quiver in the air. Draco felt entirely too proud, and his smile was dark as he mouthed at the skin around Harry's other nipple. 

'Harry,' he said as he carefully untangled one of his hands from his pale hair. 'Keep playing with this one, yes? It'd be a shame to forget it after I spent so much time on it.' 

And he brought Harry's fingers to the slick, puffy nub. Harry groaned when he ghosted over it, flinched away, Draco guided his fingers back patiently.

'Harry.' 

'Yes, I got it.' 

Satisfied, Draco pressed a sweet kiss right in the middle of Harry's chest and set to work on making Harry's right nipple as red and hard as the left one. Every so often, between teeth and tongue, he'd glance sideways to make sure Harry kept teasing it - he always did, though with tentative fingers, circling around it and swiping a thumb over it. Probably too sensitive, the poor thing - Draco wondered what would happen if he sucked on it again, nibbled at it ever so slightly. He was certain Harry would rip a strand of his hair off. 

'You're free to start complimenting me at any time, you know,' he mused, his breath warm on Harry's skin. His nipple now looked as swollen and desperate as the other one. Still, Draco licked over it, just for the pleasure of seeing it glisten with spit. 

Harry's laugh sounded on the edge of delirious. 'I'll compliment you when you- fuck, when you let me-' he trailed off to try and buck his hips up again with a frustrated huff. It was as good as words, in any sense.

Draco smirked and shifted a little, moving so he was straddling Harry's hips, hands planted on his flushed stomach, arse pressing on his erection. 

'Fuck,' Harry moaned. 

'Move all you want, love, as long as you don't come.'

But Harry didn't thrust up - instead, he surged forward to grab him by the neck and kiss him. 

'Take off your fucking clothes,' he said, red lips grazing his, hands already tugging at his suit jacket. Draco made quick work of it, infernally hot as he was, suddenly desperate to feel Harry's skin against his. They both worked on his shirt, Harry threw it to the pile on the floor and went for his slacks. 

Draco stilled him with a hand on his wrist. 

'Merlin, you're eager.' 

'So are you,' Harry snorted, pointedly looking at the outline of his cock. 

Draco couldn't very well deny it, so he simply kissed the corner of Harry's smeared lips - and he wondered how much of that lipstick was now painted on his own skin - before asking:

'What _do_ you want to do?'

'We should make good use of the bed,' Harry's smile turned devilish, eyes blown black. 'I want you to fuck me.' 

And what could Draco say to that? What could he do but let out the most ragged of groans, speechless and breathless, absolutely _reeling_ at the picture?

‘Harry,’ he breathed, and something in his tone - the pure _despair_ in it, most likely - turned Harry’s smile victorious. 

‘Now will you take these off? 

His hand was halfway to his zipper even before Harry had finished his sentence. It stilled there, however. Stilled, for there was something animalistic in his mind, and he didn’t want it. Stilled on account of some lingering softness that fortunately remembered: this would be Harry’s first time. Harry’s first time, which was always frightening and awkward, and which he was entrusting so casually to Draco. Confident that it’d go alright. That it’d feel nice. And it wasn’t a promise, but Draco would never break it nonetheless. He wanted Harry to enjoy himself - selfishly, he wanted him to enjoy himself more than he ever had, so perhaps he’d link the feeling to Draco. So he withdrew his hand and pressed it rather on Harry’s chest, coaxing him lower again, so he was back on his elbows with a little curious frown, and hoped the added distance would be enough to clear his head a little bit. 

‘Have you actually… have you done anything _there_?’ 

‘What, to myself?’ 

‘Well, yes, unless Ginny-’ 

Harry huffed a laugh, tried to lift his upper half again, but Draco pushed him down to prevent their erections from slotting together - there were a lot of pictures in his mind at the moment, like the one of Harry biting his neck with the prettiest of sounds as Draco pushed into him - and he was afraid too much friction would send him over the edge. 

‘ _Ginny_ did nothing to me. Merlin, why’d you put that thought into my head?’ Harry laughed. Draco had known the answer - Ginny hadn’t even given him a blowjob, after all, it’d be somewhat strange if she’d played with Harry’s arsehole instead - but he still liked the confirmation. ‘To myself - nothing either.’ 

‘Nothing?’ 

Harry shook his head with a crooked little smile. 

‘Come on, not even a finger-’ 

‘Merlin, Draco, do you _plan_ on being such a dick about it?’

‘No,’ Draco was quick to say, though his tone was still flat, stunned. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he added, and then he was following Harry down, bracketing his head between his forearms, kissing those tense lines from his red lips, soft and appeasing and taken by some overwhelmed urgency, some sudden feeling of inadequacy, since it truly was Harry’s _first_ time, and it would inevitably feel strange, and what if he didn’t like it? What if Draco couldn’t make it good? 

He pulled away once Harry had gone pliant and eager again, his words measured when he spoke:

‘Not to compliment myself, but going from nothing to _me_ could be a bit much, don’t you think?’ 

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘That’s why there’d typically be some kind of prep first.’ 

‘Prep you never experienced before,’ Draco pointed out, fingers running tender circles in Harry’s chest. Really, there ought to be some order to things: perhaps they could do something small first, some sort of _introduction_. Draco could breach him with his tongue just for him to feel, just to get him nice and wet and let him experience the wish of wanting _deeper,_ then he could add one slick finger and brush his prostate, properly abuse it, stroke his cock in tandem until he came. Steps like those to get him acquainted. Draco really didn’t mind the wait: Harry writhing on his tongue, on his fingers, on his cock, all pictures had their charm. 

But Harry didn’t seem to agree. Instead, he drew one of those smirks of his, all irresistible darkness and ruthless tease, and asked:

‘Do you want me to say please, is that it? D’you want me to beg for you to fuck me?’ 

Draco truly had to credit his time as a Death Eater for teaching him some _astounding_ deal of self-control. 

‘I always want you to say please,’ he said, voice painfully tight. ‘Right now, though, I just want to talk about it.’ 

Harry’s gaze went a bit softer at that. He deflated onto the mattress again, strands of black hair streaked across it, and entwined their fingers together. 

‘Do you have lube?’

‘Of course I do, I’m not a savage.’ 

‘I don’t, mind you,’ Harry snorted. ‘Bloody difficult to get at Hogwarts. I’ll have to start using yours.’ 

‘You're not using my lube to go jerk off. You can ask me and I’ll take care of you myself,’ Draco retorted, and he really did like that picture - Harry _asking_ \- and Harry, by the darkening of his eyes, seemed to like it as well. 

‘And do _you_ want to fuck me?’ Harry asked, quieter, his eyes meeting Draco’s with the prettiest layer of want. 

‘I told you I do,’ Draco murmured. ‘I always do.’ 

‘Then that settles it,’ Harry’s smile was easy, fucking excited, and he jostled their entwined fingers. 

‘Are you sure?’ 

‘Why would I say it if I wasn’t sure? I’m not that impulsive, you know?’ Harry snorted. He huffed when Draco simply kept pinning him with concerned eyes. ‘Look, right now I want it. If I stop wanting it, I’ll tell you, alright?’

Draco made a broken sound. ‘Harry-’ 

‘I’ll knee you in the face then, is that better?’

'Will you really?'

'Yes.' 

'Good,' Draco said, and then he was lunging down to kiss him, to compress his body down in a frenzy of heat and need, because Harry wanted it, wanted _him,_ and everything was alright and perfectly wonderful, and he could hardly believe that he _got_ this. 

Harry laughed against his lips, a joyful little thing, arms winding around his neck to pull him closer.

'So how _do_ we do it?' 

'Well, first we open you up,' Draco smirked, pressing one last wet kiss to Harry's painted lips before pulling away. 'Which means your slacks need to be off.'

Harry promptly made it happen. Draco did as well, purely to relieve the maddening pressure on his dick, and soon they were both naked on the bed. It was a sudden rush of intimacy - they'd never been quite so bare or in somewhere quite so soft. Draco was transfixed by the whole curves of Harry's body, sinuous lines from head to feet, pale skin on _his_ bed. In return, he could feel Harry's heavy gaze on him. 

'I've never seen you like this,' Harry remarked. He didn't seem particularly shy about the situation: his legs were still slightly parted, showing a flash of a dusting of fur around a pink hole, just enough to drive Draco crazy with the possibility that he might get to be inside it that night. 

'Objections?' 

'None,' Harry smiled. 'Well, one: you're too fucking far.' 

Draco snorted and moved closer, holding himself over Harry with one hand while trailing a teasing trail down to Harry's navel with the other. The slide of their skin together, warm and absolute, was much better than all those times they'd frotted urgently against fabric. Feeling indulgent - feeling the most hopeless urge to _please_ \- he wrapped his fingers around Harry's cock and stroked it fully, firm and slow, feeling the flesh twitch in his hand. 

‘Could you come twice in a row?’

'I don't know,' Harry groaned, writhing a little, bucking into Harry's hand. 

'We shouldn't risk it, then,' Draco smiled at Harry's frustrated huff when he withdrew his hand. 'If you take the edge off now, you’ll only focus on the unpleasant bits. You’ll just have to wait until my cock’s in you so you can finally come.’

'Oh bloody hell, Draco, _hurry_ then.' 

'If I hurry, it'll hurt.' 

'I can take pain.' 

'But you shouldn't have to.'

Harry's laugh was surprised, and wasn't that its own type of heartbreaking? Like no one had told him his life wasn't the norm - like he hadn't been _warned_. Like he was so good at endurance that he craved the hurt. And it was the sort of thing no one talked about, the type of thing not solved by words, so Draco kissed him instead, swallowed the laughter since it wasn't _funny_ , coaxed him up with the gentlest of touches, fingers sweet on his hip. 

'You should turn now, love.' 

'I-' Harry's smile was a bit crooked, a bit unsure as he rolled to his stomach. He looked at Draco over his shoulder. 'I don't think I've mentioned that I'm bloody nervous.' 

It was difficult not to melt at that. Not to suppress his own arousal and bury Harry in the warmth of his covers and relish simply in that innocent intimacy. But Harry was gyrating his hips ever so slightly against the mattress, and his nerves seemed tied with excitement, and Draco's own want was so overwhelming that he could barely think besides it. 

He tilted Harry's hips up, kneaded both arsecheeks with thumbs digging into the plump flesh - and bloody hell, he'd stared at that arse for _years_ \- before kissing Harry's tailbone gently, feeling the slight shiver there.

'Remember, knee me in the head if you want to stop.'

Harry snorted. 'I can't fucking knee you in this position. I'll kick you.' 

'Whatever works,' Draco hummed, and then he was pressing a kiss to Harry's arsecheek, a quick thing that somehow became lost in suction and teeth, and Harry's answering moan made his cock throb. When he let up, the skin had bloomed a dark red, a bruise Harry wouldn't even be able to see, only feel. For the sake of symmetry - for the joy of _marking_ \- he sucked another one on Harry's other cheek, then trailed down the cleft with his tongue, steadying Harry's hip when he instinctively flinched away. 

He grazed his lips against Harry's hole - just a little, testing the pink skin, too delirious himself to try anything more.

'Fuck,' Harry breathed.

'Good?' 

'Did I kick you?' 

Draco laughed, his breath warm against Harry's arsehole, and spread his cheeks for better access. 'I'll carry on, then,' he mused, kissing the rim more firmly, swiping the tip of his tongue over it just to relish in Harry's gasp. It seemed so small in that moment, so _tight,_ and Draco could only think that Harry had entrusted _him_ to be the one to stretch it for the first time. He lapped at it more eagerly, sinking nails into the round globes of Harry's arse to keep him still, and heard a muffled sound as his head hit the mattress. 

'That' so fucking- _Merlin_.' 

Draco hummed his agreement and then, emboldened, flicked his tongue into the hole, lips sucking at the rim. It was hot, insanely so, and the thought of how it would feel around his cock had him moaning into it. Harry's entire body shivered at the vibrations. Draco explored further, deeper, his tongue plunging inside repeatedly, getting Harry accustomed to it. It ought to feel strange, having a tongue be the first thing breaching his arsehole - wet, short and warm, twitching muscle licking into him. A finger would feel much different, a cock even more. Would Harry not like it? But he seemed to like it now, slowly rocking into it, his breath heavy and intoxicating,. He was _liking_ it, and Draco was drunk on his every moan and small thrust onto his tongue, and he pushed in as much as he could until his jaw was numb, a proper rimjob to make him see how could good it could be, how good Draco could make it, everyday if he wanted it, if he let him. 

‘Fuck, Draco- wait.’ 

Draco pulled away, drool dribbling down his chin. Some of the lipstick he’d gotten from kissing Harry was now smeared around Harry’s rim, colouring it even redder, the most obscene fucking sight Draco had ever seen. He kissed Harry’s arse right over one of the fresh bruises, a debauched kiss slick with saliva. 

‘Everything okay? You didn’t kick me.’ 

Harry’s laugh sounded muffled against the mattress. When he lifted his head to look at Draco over his shoulder, his eyes were wild.

‘No, I didn’t. Can you do a finger now?’

Draco had to bite off a ragged sound at that. He tapped Harry’s arse gently.

‘Of course, sweetheart. I’ll get the lube.’

It really was difficult to get some proper lube at Hogwarts. As a common rule, students at the start of puberty would try to make do with oils they swiped off the Potions classroom - Madam Pomfrey had had to treat the eeriest collection of rashes. A hazard to get it, yes, but now, with Harry in his bed, Draco was infinitely glad he'd applied the effort.

'It's going to feel stranger,' he warned, back between Harry's legs. 

'You've had your tongue in there.' 

'Stranger than that.' 

'Prove it,' Harry said, eyes lit with heated dare. 

With a smirk, Draco slicked his finger and pushed the tip of it inside. It slid in easily at first, halfway through, sucked in by the burning muscle. Harry moaned, Draco pressed further and couldn't resist stroking his own cock when the slick made an obscene sound at the rim. It was bloody _beautiful_ , the way Harry's spine arched as Draco slid it out, then in, out, right to the knuckle. 

'You should hurry,' Harry huffed, shifting his own weight to one forearm so he could wrap a hand around his cock. 

'You shouldn't come,' Draco mused. He tapped his second finger against the red, puffy rim to watch it flutter. 

Harry groaned 'I think you made up that rule.' 

Draco only hummed, but he did replace Harry's hand with his, firmly encircling the shaft and giving it an indulgent tug. 

‘You just look so bloody lovely when you’re desperate.’ 

Harry's broken noise was precious - Draco took the opportunity to slide a second finger in, stroking his dick to distract him from the stretch. Prodding slowly through the tight channel - so _fucking_ tight, so _perfect_ \- he found that fateful little nub, sensitive and barely sticking out, and rubbed over it. Harry's entire body seemed to go into shock. 

_'Merlin._ Do that again. Do that _again,_ Draco.' 

‘Do what?’ 

‘Don’t play daft,’ Harry said, rocking impatiently onto Draco’s fingers. 

It made for the prettiest sight - and with Draco generously teasing his prostate the unpleasantness from the stretch seemed to slip off Harry’s mind. All of him was eager and confident, thrusting back as Draco scissored his fingers wider, applied a bit more lube - partially for the lewd sounds, impossibly graphic in the quiet of the dorm - and added a third one. And he was trying to be careful, he was, but he ached so _much_ and Harry was the most reckless little thing, moaning in abandon, no precaution, no _patience_. 

‘Come on, be done with it already.’ 

‘Have you absolutely no self-control?’ 

‘I didn’t think I _needed_ it,’ Harry shot back. ‘Come on, I’d like to come _tonight.'_

‘So do I,’ Draco snorted - and truly, Harry _had_ to be putting up a show, all rolling hips and slick red lips, liquid eyes and tousled hair, he was trying to _kill_ him. ‘I suppose we both have to wait.’ 

‘You’re no bloody fun.’ 

‘You _wanted_ me to fuck you.’ 

‘So fuck me, _please.'_

'Fuck,' Draco groaned, parting his fingers impossibly wider. 'Say it again.' 

_'Please,_ Draco.' 

And Harry was craning his neck to face him fully, pink-faced and shiny-eyed, lipstick mostly bitten and licked off, and Draco could remember applying it all prim and proper in the dungeon hall, surrounded by music and dancing ghosts, when everything had been wonderful in a very formal way, and now it was just him and Harry, private and precious and special, so _bloody_ special, the type of memory one cherishes forever, and Draco couldn’t wait any longer. It wouldn’t hurt, he told himself. It wouldn’t hurt, he wouldn’t let it, because he loved Harry, because he was going to make him feel the best he ever fucking had. 

‘Alright, love, just- just hold on another second.’

He put on a condom - those were in a very flashy bowl at the back of the infirmary, a bowl enchanted by Madam Pomfrey never to go empty - and slicked himself up. One hand settled at Harry’s hip, he guided the flushed tip of his cock to Harry’s rim. He was leaking as well, twitching eagerly in his own hand, and it was quite worrisome to think of Harry’s tightness now, for he didn’t really know how long he could _last_. 

‘Are you ready?’

‘Merlin, do you actually _still_ have to ask that?’ Harry snorted, though he was smiling a bit deliriously as he looked back at Draco, eyes wide. He _was_ nervous, set on not making a fuss over it, and Draco wanted to oblige. So he pushed in, just the head of his cock, and watched transfixed as it was sucked through the rim and enveloped in heavenly heat. It felt so fucking _good,_ so decadent that he had to squeeze the base to reign himself in, and Harry was moaning as well, and theirs was a symphony much more heartfelt than the ghosts’ as Draco pushed himself fully in. 

It was ridiculous. It was the kind of thing that didn’t actually happen. He was flush with Harry’s arse, he was inside Harry, it felt bloody perfect, he wanted to _cry._

He settled by plastering himself to Harry’s back gently, trying to control his hips and not thrust too deep. Harry was breathing deeply, and Draco nuzzled the back of his ear.

‘Would you get too smug,’ Harry started, ‘if I said that you feel bloody huge?’

Draco laughed, kissing up his neck. ‘A bit. But you do owe me a compliment.’ 

‘Well, you do, then,’ Harry hummed before turning his head to brush their lips together. ‘It feels nice, though. We should do it more often.’ 

‘Yeah?’ Draco smirked. ‘I more than agree with that. We should do it everyday.’ 

Harry laughed, and the vibrations down his body, right to where they were locked together, made them both moan.

‘I don’t think my arse could take that.’ 

‘That’s because you don’t see what I see. From here, love, your arse was meant to be fucked.’ 

And he pulled back to see it again, to witness just how perfect Harry’s arse was, clenching around his cock in this maddening standstill, until it wasn’t a standstill any longer - as he pulled back his cock slid halfway out, and he couldn’t help thrusting in again, slow but sure, bottoming out again. They both moaned, Draco did it again - just as slow, so he could _see,_ so he could watch them come together - and then again and again, a careful rhythm which Harry seemed to take in stride. Seemed to _love._ Soon he was pushing back, curious, experimenting, growing more confident by the minute, and the noise he made when Draco dug fingers into his hips to snap back into him with a slick squelsh was utterly sinful. 

_‘Fuck.’_

‘Exactly,’ Harry moaned, rolling back on Draco’s cock.

Draco snapped his hips flush with Harry’s arse again. There’d be marks on Harry’s hips, five pretty dots on each. Draco hoped he’d be able to see them in the morning. 

‘You’ve _no_ idea how perfect you feel.’ 

Harry’s smirk was wicked. ‘Oh yeah? Then show me.’ 

It was barely a dare - it was encouragement. And Draco obliged, put his back into it, put his _breath_ into it, sped up his thrusts into sharp, loud things that echoed in the room. He could feel his orgasm approach with each dip of his cock into that tight heat, with each of Harry’s noises spurring him on, and Harry, by the frenzied way in which he moved, a hand sliding underneath them to tug quickly at his own weeping dick, was close as well. 

‘Are you going to come, Harry?’

‘Merlin,’ Harry panted, ‘Fuck, _yes_.’ 

‘Well, you can,’ Draco rasped out. ‘You can, love, come for me, you’ve done so well, so wonderful, fuck, I love you so bloody much.’ 

And the words froze on his tongue, but his hips were already snapping forward and Harry crumbled on his forearms with a drawn out sound, something _broken_ as he finally came in long ropes all over Draco’s sheets, and his arse clenched so perfectly, so desperately around Draco’s cock that his own orgasm followed, even as his head reeled from the bloody words he’d said _aloud_ , the unbidden confession that had seemed so _right_ , that Harry _had_ to have heard, and he rode his climax out in frantic, hard thrusts before collapsing over Harry’s limp body. 

It was eerily silent, then. 

Eerily silent without the sound of skin on skin. Not tense, though. 

Content. 

Carefully, after he’d regained his breath, Draco slid out and removed the condom, tying it and dropping it on the floor. They shifted quiet and fluidly, heads on the pillow and Harry settling in Draco’s arm. It felt blissful - perhaps Harry _hadn't_ heard it. Perhaps his orgasm had dropped a millisecond before Draco uttered the words, and they’d been drowned under the sound of blood rushing in his ears. 

Perhaps. Most likely, really. Love confessions - heard ones, in any sense - didn’t descend into casual silence. 

He hadn’t heard. 

Pushing down his panic, Draco kissed Harry’s forehead, nose pressing into soft dark hair. 

‘Good first time?’

‘Amazing first time,’ Harry hummed. He sounded all soft and liquid - Draco wished he could be like that forever, never worried, never tense. ‘I’m glad I waited around for you.’ 

Really, how could Draco not preen at that?

‘Me too. Just imagine if you’d lost your virginity to _Finnigan_.’ 

Harry laughed, shaking slightly in Draco’s arms. ‘Yeah, you were definitely a good choice.’ 

For a minute, it seemed that they’d dozed off like that. Draco pulled one of the dark green covers over them, and they deflated into the warm space, heavy-lidded eyes blinking sluggishly at the dim lighting. He was drifting off in this state of lightheaded bliss - because everything was so fucking _perfect_ in that moment - when Harry spoke up again, lips grazing his chest:

‘Draco.’

‘Hm?’

‘You’re wretched at love confessions.’ 

His first instinct was to laugh, a surprised little thing that quickly died in his throat. He clung to Harry a bit tighter, thinking of denying it, brushing it off - but then Harry was lifting his head to peer at him, all amused eyes and light smile, and he couldn’t bring himself to anything besides soft, hushed honesty. 

‘I’m not. You just make it very hard not to say it.’ 

Harry laughed, pressing a sweet kiss to his chest.

‘I love you too, you know? Though I planned to say it while wearing some clothes.’ 

‘Harry,’ Draco breathed, not believing his ears - pushing away a little to look better into Harry’s eyes, to see the unflinching _sincerity_ in it. Harry loved him. Harry Potter, the boy he’d loved since first year, loved him back. ‘Do you mean that?’

‘No, I’m just fucking with you,’ Harry snorted. ‘Of course I mean it.’ 

‘Say it again, then.’ 

‘I love you,’ Harry said, tender words ending with a mischievous smile. ‘D’you want me to get some veritaserum and prove it?’

‘No,’ Draco huffed, still reeling, _delirious_ , peppering kisses in Harry’s hair. ‘No, you’re not going anywhere until morning. Say it again.’ 

‘Oh, sod off,’ Harry laughed. ‘We should talk about this better, shouldn’t we?’

‘We should,’ Draco hummed. He simply wound his arms tighter around Harry, though. ‘Tomorrow. We’ll go to Madam Puddifoot’s. I always wanted to take you there on a date.’ 

‘Sounds good,’ Harry hummed. He looked back up at him, then, gaze warm. ‘Would _you_ say it now?’

And Draco, who’d been nurturing those words under his tongue for years, felt, as he spoke them properly for the first time, as if he was taking his first full breath in that school. 

‘I love you, Harry. Now try to sleep, and don’t look up at me.’

Harry snorted. ‘Why?’ 

‘Because it’d be a shame for us to get this far only for you to see me cry. We’d have to break it all off, then.’ 

Harry’s laugh was a gentle, ticklish thing against his chest. ‘Yeah, alright. Sob quietly, would you?’

‘Of course,’ Draco drawled. ‘Far be it that I should disturb your beauty sleep.’ 

There was no answer, only another chaste press of lips against his skin and then overwhelming quiet. With his nose buried in Harry’s hair and their limbs entwined, with their breathing in tandem and sleep lulling them both, the tears never did fall. They burnt right at the edge of Draco’s eyes, smoldered by a fire of scarlet and gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe that next Wednesday we finish the fic! 
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	20. Eternity over Tea

The very next morning, amidst the flurry of lazy, sleepy-eyed students taking advantage of the weekend to replenish their school supplies at Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, Draco and Harry took the train out to Hogsmeade. The snow dangled in the air, almost sheer with the clear morning light, smooth chatter filled the streets, Madam Puddifoot’s rested in its self-satisfied and eccentric pink, the building equivalent to a Cheshire smile. Draco had always been bothered by it, most particularly by the obnoxious happiness it endorsed, all lovebirds with shared teacups and heart shaped pastries. Now, as a lovebird himself, he felt nothing but a tingling sense of pride when he walked through the door. 

They took a seat by the window, ordered some chamomile, leaned close over the table, and Draco could look into Harry’s eyes - the green duller from the early morning, slower, sticking to everything - and know so simply that no other couple in that place, no matter their coy smiles and entwined fingers and pretensions of love, felt as strongly as the two of them did in that moment. It wasn’t even selfish to say, no, but exquisite fact: they were the height of love. 

‘We ought to begin.’ 

Harry stopped watching the scarce snow and looked at him. He seemed very lazily content. 

‘ _You_ ought to start.’

Draco snorted. ‘There’s an order to this, is there?’ 

‘Well, you confessed first. During sex of all times,’ Harry’s smile was wicked. ‘So yeah, you’re first now too.’ 

‘Alright,’ Draco hummed. He leaned back on his chair - to compensate for the distance, he stretched a hand out, which Harry promptly took. It was a very simple intimacy, and that very fact made him giddy. ‘What do you want to know?’

Harry narrowed his eyes a bit. ‘We’re doing full honesty, I’ll have you know. And no refusing questions.’ 

‘Yes, darling,’ drawled Draco. ‘Every embarrassing detail. By all means, indulge your curiosity.’ 

It was a costly thing to say - unnatural, the ever guarded Lucius Malfoy would _shudder_ at the thought. Draco himself felt the beginnings of that urge, the instinct to withhold, senselessly and exclusively out of habit. It died out, though. Harry’s smile was so excited, how on earth could he regret it?

‘When d’you know you loved me?’

Draco sighed. It was dreadfully easy to cast his memory back to that first day he’d seen Harry - seen _Potter_ \- all fiery eyes, reluctant charm, endearing discomfort. See his own hand peek out of the cloak, Harry’s remain a fist by his side. Feel that childish, then incomprehensible tug in his heart… it hadn’t quite been love, but the kind of thing helpless to precede it.

‘You looked ridiculous in your school robes, but you didn’t seem to know it. Or care, I suppose. You didn’t care, and I found it funny.’ 

The tea came in two light blue mugs, steam charged with a warm, herbal fragrance. It was a nice distraction: Harry’s eyes had gone very wide behind his glasses, his lips twitching into a smile that didn’t quite come to be. 

‘You mean… the _first_ time you saw me in my school robes?’

‘Yes.’

‘In first fucking year?’

 _'Yes_ ,’ Draco repeated. Harry broke into a disbelieving laugh. It made Draco shift in his seat. ‘You already knew I never hated you, and that I found you handsome. When did you think I started fancying you?’ 

‘I don’t bloody know,’ Harry wheezed, his smile wide and lopsided. ‘At _most_ I’d have guessed fourth year, when I actually started filling out my clothes. I looked like a bloody twig in first year, all skin and bone.’ 

‘You looked adorable,’ Draco smirked behind the brim of his mug. Harry looked entirely unconvinced. 

‘You just said I looked fucking ridiculous.’ 

‘They’re not mutually exclusive, Harry.’ 

Harry snorted before taking a sip of his own tea. His nose scrunched a little - must have scalded his tongue. But the chamomile was good, rich and calming, a definite improvement from everything else they’d ever drunk together. _Much_ better than that godawful absinthe. They sipped in silence for a moment, fingers wrapped around the warm ceramic, legs entangled below the table. Like a bloody pamphlet photo for the place - like all the sickly sweet couples he’d shied away from for years with envious eyes. 

‘I had to kiss you first, though.’ 

Draco looked at him from over his mug. Swallowed, let the warmth wash over him.

‘Yes, I recall.’ 

‘Were you _never_ going to kiss me then?’ 

‘I guess we’ll never know,’ Draco shrugged. He didn’t think he would have, in all honesty. He’d always been so frightened before, so aware of Harry’s pedestal - not the one fame had imposed on him, but the one he’d _earnt_. That Harry had stepped down willingly was one thing, but for him to have reached up… no, he figured he’d have died of frustration first. 

He allowed himself his own indulgent moment of curiosity: 

‘Why _did_ you kiss me?’

‘The first time?’ Harry’s smile was semi apologetic. ‘I was _very_ drunk.’ 

‘How romantic,’ Draco mused. It wasn’t too upsetting a confession: he perfectly remembered the wobble in Harry’s step, the way his eyes had shined as bright as the glitter around them. He wouldn’t dwell over a drunken kiss - alcohol, in some respects, could be a fortunate catalyser. 

Besides, the reality of the thing was that he was having tea with Harry at Madam Puddifoot’s. They’d said they loved each other the previous night. At this point he was so pitifully, overwhelmingly happy that Blaise and Tracey could walk in and he’d probably pay for their tea. 

‘I did want to kiss you before,’ Harry went on. His eyes had taken on a reminiscent twinkle. ‘Remember that night with the veritaserum? You left in such a hurry, and I found myself thinking - I should have pushed him against the shelves and kissed him.’

Draco huffed a laugh. ‘Do you mean that?’ 

‘I did say full honesty, didn’t I?’ 

And to think that night he’d returned to the dungeons thinking he’d ruined everything; that he’d been set on never facing Harry’s way again, all the while wallowing that he hadn’t been invited to their next night out. And Harry had wanted to _kiss_ him. Bloody hell, it would probably have been a more romantic first kiss, the veritaserum coursing through their veins colouring everything in the tenderest of honesty. 

No. He liked their first kiss as it was. He liked it with Harry’s fingers on his scar - the scar _he'd_ made - and his eyes lit in glitter. He liked the need of it, the imprinted memory of jutted hips against graffitied tile. 

He really didn’t think he’d change a thing. 

‘Was that when you realized you fancied me then? In the storage closet?’

Harry idly stirred his tea, the little spoon clinking against the mug.

‘I think so, yeah.’ 

‘And when did you realize the other thing?’

‘The other thing?’ Harry questioned. At Draco’s stubbornly closed lips, his face cleared in realization and he rolled his eyes with a little smile. ‘You just want me to say it again, don’t you?’

‘I always want you to say it again.'

But Harry didn’t humour him, which Draco really thought was quite cruel. What was Madam Puddifoot’s for, in all its pink frills and rose water, if not for unapologetic, saccharine confessions of love? 

‘I realized _that,_ believe it or not, when you threw me off my broom.’ 

Draco frowned, raked Harry’s face at once for any signs of amusement. But he looked serious - hadn’t he said full honesty? - and Draco could hardly believe it. That bloody Quidditch game, that horrible day which still flashed in his memory whenever the wind wisped too quickly through his ears - how was that the moment Harry had known he loved him?

‘You’re not serious.’ 

‘I am.’ 

‘You kicked me out the the bloody infirmary!’

‘Of course I did, what you did was fucking stupid,’ Harry snorted.

‘Harry,’ Draco sighed, ‘Could you possibly, _possibly_ make a shred more sense?’ 

For one tortuous moment, Harry taunted him with silence, eyes twinkling mischievously while he sipped his tea. He very properly set his mug down, entwined his fingers on the table, shrugged with a softer smile. 

‘My arm really hurt, you know? And I thought: fuck Malfoy, he’s a twat,’ he chuckled, ‘But then while I was at the infirmary there wasn’t much to do besides thinking, and _sometimes_ I could see your point. Mostly I knew you were wrong, mind you, but sometimes I knew you were right. And it was that… that seeing but not fully understanding...’ Harry’s eyes were digging into him, meaningful, like he knew his own words were unfit and hoped to balance their lack with the sheer intensity of his liquid gaze. ‘I liked that, and I just knew I loved you.’ 

They were vague words, yes. Harry’s eyes, brimming with fondness - and how strange was it still that it was directed at _him_? - helped. But Draco would have known what he meant regardless. He felt it as well. 

But it wasn’t to be talked about. It was love in its essence, it was felt by both, it was meant to be left unsaid. 

‘So…’ he said, leaning closer to him - how could he help it, after Harry’s words? ‘I knew I loved you because you looked bloody ghastly in your robes, and you knew you loved me because I broke your arm?’ 

Harry’s smile bloomed slow and mesmerizingly wide. 

‘We ought to come up with lies in case people ask.’ 

‘No,’ snorted Draco. ‘I quite like them as they are, actually.’

He wouldn’t change a thing about them, in all truth - not their first kiss, not their first date, not the years he’d spent pining. No, he wouldn’t change one detail in their middle, not the cruelty nor the yearning, because in this moment, with Harry’s smile so intimate and genuine for him, he knew at once that he’d gotten the perfect ending. 

‘We love each other,’ he said, the most disbelieving little thing. 

Harry nodded all the same. 

‘We love each other,’ he repeated, lips twitching into a smirk like it was a joke between them. ‘Get me some treacle tarts, would you? I want to go walk in the snow.’ 

Draco sighed, a sorry pretense at put-upon. He was already searching for his wallet with one hand, though, drinking the rest of his tea at once before they headed to the counter. 

‘Harry - Harry, would you bloody look? - there’s heart-shaped ones.’ 

‘They’re kind of lame, aren’t they?’

‘Terribly so. We’ll take a dozen.’ 

Outside, the snow crunched under their feet while they walked. They took the winding streets, a lazy pace to make time until the next train. Draco, in reminiscence of that first night in Hogsmeade, carried the box of pastries. This time, however, Harry hovered as close as he wanted to take each tart, they brushed arms and touched hands, and they both knew exactly why Draco had bought the ghastly things. No need to lie - Draco thought back to that moment at Honeydukes where he’d ached to loop his arms around Harry and settled for curt humour instead, and he felt unspeakably grateful to all things in such a sickly sweet way that he could have eaten one of the tarts and felt entirely no difference. 

He didn’t even try it, though. Because he was soft and pitiful and in love, and Harry would have his whole dozen. 

‘You know, one would think they’d taste better as hearts.’ 

‘They taste like pure sugar whatever form they’re in, Harry.’ 

‘Sod off.’ 

Draco laughed, then watched as Harry took another bite. It was his third one - he didn’t seem intent on slowing down. 

‘They don’t taste any different at all?’ 

‘No,’ Harry sighed. He seemed almost disappointed, but when he looked up at Draco and squeezed his hand, there was a gentle smile ghosting his lips. ‘I still think I like them better, though.’ 

The train slithered through the snowy mounds and dropped them off at Hogwarts station. They took the enchanted boats across the lake. The other students wandered off with their backs hunched and their arms wrapped around bags of sweets, supplies and trinkets. Harry and Draco stayed behind. There was something new and precious between them, the kind of feeling imperatively fleeting, only experienced once, a tender beginning that could never be revisited, and somehow the unspoken consensus reigned that whenever they stepped into the castle it would be primly snipped away.

They braced the cold. Grinded teeth. Harry laboured through his sixth tart while Draco watched the peaceful grey lake. 

‘Do you know what happened there?’ he asked, gesturing to a spot further along the margin. 

‘What?’ 

‘I used to sit here at dawn,’ he guided Harry to the exact spot with a soft hold on his elbow. ‘The sun rises over the trees, I liked the sight. And I’d be here,’ they stood over the snow and turned to watch the lake, ‘And Pansy would come find me. I’d brood - about you.’ 

Harry laughed. ‘Really? D’you do it often?’

‘Often enough that Pansy grew sick of it,’ Draco shrugged. ‘She was the one who convinced me to go to Hogsmeade that first night.’ 

‘When you say first night,’ Harry’s smile was slow and sly. ‘Do you mean _this_ night?’ he tapped the box of treacle tarts in Draco’s hand, ‘Or the night you lied about being there at all?’ 

Draco’s eyes went very wide. It’d been very long ago and the memory was foggy: a fit of jealousy, Harry and Finnigan dancing in a pub, Draco watching from the street… A conversation after Charms class, Harry - suddenly close but always distant - telling him he’d seen him, Draco lying through his teeth. 

‘How on earth do you remember that?’ 

‘Because it was bloody strange,’ Harry snorted. ‘And I was going to say you ought to join us next time - which was fucking obvious, by the way, why else would I mention Hogsmeade? - but you just left.’ 

‘You wanted to _invite_ me?’

‘If you hadn’t been such a twat,’ Harry smirked. 

Wasn’t that a revelation? He’d spent so long obsessing over the exchange - he remembered Pansy laughing as he shared it with her, the surge of panic when she suggested they should go to Hogsmeade, the cold, rotten certainty that Harry belonged somewhere very far from him, detached from his life completely, and that this eighth year was but a torturous limbo sent by cosmic karma as one final punishment for him.

And Harry had wanted to invite him. Willing to give him a chance - because he might not fully understand him but he _saw_ him, just like he’d said at Madam Puddifoot’s, and wasn’t that the purest form of love? 

Draco kissed him softly, a hand on his hip, the other holding the box of heart-shaped pastries between their chests. 

‘I was not going to tell you that I’d gone there to _spy_. I watched you and Finnigan dance and felt wretched for the rest of the night.’ 

Harry pulled away further, a little grin on his face, his cheeks flushed from the cold, and tapped Draco’s chest with both his hands. 

‘Finnigan thinks you hate him.’ 

‘All your friends must think I hate them. All your friends must _hate_ me.’ 

‘They don’t. They resent you, they like you and they have no bloody idea how to act around you unless they’re drunk.’

Draco huffed, staring somewhat dispiritedly at the lake.

‘Is that much better?’

‘It is. They'll learn,' Harry hummed. His voice, gentle and amused, really did make it feel like it was true. 

They watched the rhythmic rippling of the water in silence. So strange it was that, dozens of feet beneath them, he’d stared at the depths of the lake from the darkness of the Slytherin common room, pining for Harry late at night. Now here they were, lit by sunlight like a blessing, arms entwined as they shivered from the wind which wisped through the spindly trees, two blurring silhouettes lost between the immensity of the clouded skies, the grey lake and the somber castle looming behind them.

‘We’re leaving Hogwarts,’ Harry murmured. 

‘I should hope so. I’ve had enough of this school for a lifetime.’ 

‘But what will we _do_?’

Draco snorted. ‘You do know that there’s a whole world outside of Hogwarts, don’t you? I mean, you saved it, love, you’re allowed to live in it now.’ 

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean I know _how_ to live in it,’ Harry sighed, squeezing himself closer in the crook of Draco’s arm. Draco smiled, kissing his head softly. 

‘Of course you do. You’re the Boy Who Lived, remember?’

It made Harry laugh, at least, though it was a brief little sound before he turned pensive again. And Draco could - _would_ \- offer him support as their last year in Hogwarts drew to an end, but he could offer him _much_ more. Something in humble words, yes, but that resembled eternity. 

‘You know, Harry - that flat in London. I _could_ be serious about it.’ 

Harry looked up at him, an eyebrow raised. ‘You could?’

‘If you wanted me to.’ 

And Harry looked at him for a long while, long enough, Draco assumed, to judge the sincerity in his expression - which was pure and obvious and the type of hopelessly in love that’s impossible to distrust - before he smirked a little. 

‘You’re not serious, then. Not about all of it, at least - you’re not paying for the whole thing.’ 

Draco hid his smile in Harry’s hair. ‘Don’t be daft. You ought to have lost all your money in shots. Speaking of which - shall we go out with your friends tonight?’ 

Harry regarded him with something very soft in his eyes. 

‘No. No, I think I’d rather stay in tonight.’

‘And the nightmares?’ Draco frowned. 

Harry shrugged. ‘If I have one, I’ll come find you.’ 

He looked at the lake once more, and Draco’s gaze followed. The snow still twirled lazily in the air, covering the fields in pristine white. Soon it would all begin to melt into the dew of spring. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done!! 
> 
> God, who knew that after writing roughly 110.000 words of sickeningly sweet fluff, I could feel so empty. I don't even know what I'll do now that this is over. 
> 
> To anyone who's read this fic, who's left a kudos or a comment, thank you, you've all very successfully stroked my ego, I hope I see you guys in whatever I write next~
> 
> And as always:
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


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